Nexus
by Star of Fate
Summary: It is believed that there are an infinite number of parallel worlds: some similar with only one or two distinctions, some so radically different they defy logic. But in every universe, there is one constant that holds them together. This is their story.
1. A Dream That Fades into Black

Black Rock Shooter © Huke  
All Characters © Respective Owners.

* * *

 **Prologue: A Dream that Fades into Black**

Even though so much had changed in the days when the walls between were torn down, some things would always stay the same. This island was a perfect example.

Several miles off the coast of the recently named Unity Grounds, the island had somehow managed to escape being merged with the other worlds when the barriers were shattered. It was an oddity in and of itself: a desolate piece of land surrounded by a seemingly endless ocean; spires of jagged rock and broken metal creaked ominously; the black clouds rumbled ceaselessly, but gave no signs of rain or lightning. Such a dark and foreboding place had not been seen since the Union, filling those who heard of it with thoughts of intrigue and danger. It was for that reason why she had come to this island in the first place.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her across the checkered ground, her black coat whipping in the wind behind her. She was panting hard; this was a whole new experience for her; she had never known the feeling of the air burning in her lungs, nor the stitch forming in her side. But that was because she was always the one chasing, never the one being chased. Others cowered in her presence and shuddered at the very utterance of her name. But now…now she was the one being chased…she was the one being hunted…and was the one who was afraid.

She bound over a fallen pillar and kicked against the nearby wall to cross a large gap, rolling when she touched the ground and jumping straight back to her feet without losing momentum. She saw a narrow hole in the checkered wall and dropped into a slide, successfully slipping through the gap. Once she was clear, she pressed her back against the wall, tilting her head back, and taking the chance to catch her breath. He winced at the pain suddenly flaring up on her right abdomen – damn it, one of her stitches came loose again. Everything seemed to be going against her today.

It took her a moment to stand back up again, her legs feeling like they were made of lead, holding the open wound in her side and ignoring the blood staining her glove. She was done exploring the island, she thought to herself. She needed to get back to the mainland and warn the others. Maybe if they stood together, they could – wait, she heard something just then…. It sounded like….

She threw herself forward as the wall exploded behind her, tucking and roll then setting herself up into a crouch, leering at the newly formed hole in the wall. The dust of the exploded clouded the attacker's face, but she could see her enemy's outline, as well as the shape of their execution weapon. As the attacker walked closer toward her, she held out her left arm and her weapons – the Rock Cannon – appeared in her grip in a dazzle of blue light.

The attacker charged once her weapon emerged, leaping into the air with their tool of execution above their head. She took aim at the attacker, the Rock Cannon charging its shot and –

* * *

Mato gasped loudly as she shot up from her bed, sheets clenched in her hands tightly, sweat dripping from her brow, panting fast like she had run a marathon.

She pressed her hand over her heart hoping to slow it down, taking a moment to let reality wash over. She wasn't on some post-apocalyptic island in the middle of nowhere being chased by a monster; she was safe in her bedroom, her mother was downstairs making breakfast, her annoying little brother was snoring so loudly next door she could hear him through the walls. She was safe.

"Mato, Hiro, get out of bed or you'll be late for school!" Mato's mother, Hana Kuroi, shouted. "If you're late one more time, getting grounded will be the least of your worries! That goes double for you, Mato!"

"Hai, hai!" Mato called back; her brother made a similar noise next door. "Be down in a second!"

Groaning, Mato managed to drag herself out of bed and slide over to the window, sliding back the curtains to let the light in. Mato sighed as the warmth of the sun spread over her body; it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day. But even though the skies were clear this morning, Mato couldn't help thinking about the dark clouds she had seen in her dreams; the rolling thunder that rattled her bones; the feeling of exhaustion and panic. It was all too real just to be a dream...and Mato knew the reason why.

Sighing deeply, Mato leaned on the windowsill, resting her head in her hand, staring up at the endless blue sky. And then she began to sing:

" **Black Rock Shooter, doko e itta no? kikoemasu ka?** "

 **BLACK ROCK SHOOTER: NEXUS**

Mato reluctantly dressed herself for school today and dragged herself downstairs, yawning loudly into her hand, wishing she could just crawl under her sheets and never come out. It was all because of the dreams she's been having of Black Rock Shooter. Since their fight two months ago, Mato hadn't heard a word from her Other in quite a while; she had almost forgot about her and nearly chalked the whole experience to a very realistic vision. But Black Rock Shooter had been appearing more and more in her thoughts the past week, haunting her every sleeping moment, which was strange because the Other hardly bothered her. It was like she was trying to tell her something….

She took a seat at the table across from her bothersome sibling while their mother was working in the kitchen. As per usual, their father wasn't there that morning; no doubt already away on another business. Mato didn't know why she would have expected otherwise.

"Eh, you already got up," said Hiro annoyingly. "I though you're too lazy to even get out of bed."

"Shut up!" Mato snapped.

"All right, that's enough, you two," said Hana in a tone of finality, walking over with their breakfast. "Now hurry up and eat or you'll be late. And Mato, please remember to go to the store after school to pick up eggs and vegetables today. I've been telling you for the past three days to do it."

"All right, I get it already," grumbled Mato, getting ready to eat her breakfast when she noticed what was on the plate. "Pancakes with strawberries? You never make these for breakfast. Did something good happen?"

"It's the twenty-six, remember," said Hiro, already stuffing his face in syrupy goodness.

 _Ah, now it makes sense_ , Mato thought. Today was the twenty-sixth of November. It was a normal day that didn't celebrate any holidays or birthdays, but this time of year was very special for her mother. Every year on this day since Mato was born, Hana would be in a perpetual good mood, gliding across the house, humming a cheerful song, as she went about her day as normal as any other. The only thing different about today was that Mato's mother would make a fancy dinner that was even bigger than their Christmas feast.

Mato hummed to herself thoughtfully, unconsciously nibbling at her food. This morning she had a strange dream about Black Rock Shooter being attacked, which was weird on its own because as far as she knew Black Rock Shooter was the strongest person in Otherworld. And it seemed like a big coincidence that she would have this dream on the day of her mom's weird anniversary. Mato shook her head; it was crazy to think that Black Rock Shooter and her mom were related at all…but it didn't hurt to ask….

"Hey, mom," said Mato. "What's so special about today? You always look so…happy whenever November twenty-sixth comes around."

"Oh, that's right, I never told you about that," said Hana thoughtfully, coming out of the kitchen with a soft smile on her face. "Well, it happened a really long time ago, back about when I was your age, Mato. Today was the day I met someone very special that changed my life."

"Was it dad?" asked Hiro curiously.

"Well, I did meet your father today, too," said Hana, acting like meeting her future husband was nothing special. "But I met someone before him. I was…in a really bad place at that time…and then _she_ helped me. And every year, I throw a personal holiday so that I never forget her. Sounds kinda silly, doesn't it?" Before either of her children had a chance to respond, she noticed the clock on the wall. "Oh, shoot, you two need to get going or you'll be late for school!"

Grumbling, Mato grabbed her lunch off the kitchen counter and rushed over to the door to head for school. Then she had a second thought and dash back to her plate, stuffing one more flapjack in her mouth before running out. Hey, if it worked for toast, it could work for pancakes, right?

Obviously she was proven wrong when she accidentally ran into Arata and splattered syrup on her uniform. She made Mato run laps around the track field before class.

* * *

Mato flopped face first into her desk in homeroom, her calves throbbing, hoping the world would just vanish if she closed her eyes. But as much as she wanted to, she couldn't close her eyes; not because she would get in trouble with the teacher, but because she didn't want to dream again. She didn't want to see Black Rock Shooter.

Reluctantly, Mato pried herself from her favorite sleeping position and sat up straight; her eyes felt heavier now than they did when she woke up. She heard the chair pull out next to her and looked over, relieved to see that her best friend, Yomi Takanashi, was taking her seat…. And she brought Kagari with her…again…yay…

"Good morning, Mato," said Yomi pleasantly until she got a second look at her. "Are you all right, Mato? You look terrible."

"Really?" said Kagari, practically throwing herself on Yomi. "She always looks like that to me."

"Kagari!" Yomi snapped offensively.

Mato sighed. Though the two of them had become good friends these past two months, their relationship was still in the middle of a rough patch. Mato knew that Kagari was in love with Yomi and she felt threatened by Mato. Though she explained to her dozens of times that Mato wasn't interested in Yomi that way, Kagari was still a little defensive and rarely left the two of them alone.

"But in all seriousness, you don't look so good, Mato," said Kagari, actually sounding worried for a change. "You look really pale and you have huge bags under your eyes. You been getting enough sleep."

"No…not really," mumbled Mato. "Been having a lot of…nightmares recently."

"What about?" asked Yomi.

She didn't answer right away, thinking about what to tell them. Like Mato, Yomi and Kagari had Otherselves (Dead Master and Chariot respectively) and both of them had been slain by Black Rock Shooter before she went insane. The unexpected deaths of their Others had nearly destroyed Yomi and Kagari's friendship if Mato hadn't stood up to Black Rock Shooter in time. Though Mato couldn't tell them that; they would both think she was dreaming or she had finally snapped. The only people that Mato could talk about the Otherworld with were her classmate, Yuu, and the guidance counselor, Miss Irino. She needed see them after class, Mato decided. Maybe they could tell her why she's been having these nightmares recently.

Fortunately, Yomi seemed to take Mato's silence as her way of not wanting to talk about it and thankfully dropped the subject. The bespectacled girl opened up her bag and took out a handful of threaded bracelets, some of them finished, others half done. Mato smiled. Yomi loved handicrafts; Mato, Kagari, and Yuu were always getting handmade gifts even if Yuu was still a little shy to accept them.

"Making more bracelets?" asked Kagari interestingly. "Don't already have over a few hundred lying around your house?"

"What can I say, I like making them?" said Yomi, giggling. "I've been thinking of adding on to the original friendship bracelets I gave you guys. Now they have charms. See? This one is for Kagari and this one is for Mato."

Yomi handed her the bracelet; it was woven with blue thread like her original one, but there was an extra weight to it added by the sterling silver charm. It was a star – Black Rock Shooter's symbol; Mato felt a chill run up her spine. She looked over at Kagari, who had gotten a new bracelet made of yellow thread and the charm was a wheel with a crown. Yomi's was green and charm was a cracked skull. Both were symbols used by their Others. Mato was starting to get that familiar eerie feeling again. It was crazy to think that Yomi knew anything about Otherworld, right? It was just a coincidence, right?

Luckily, Mato was saved from having to think about it any further when Yuu walked into the classroom and greeted them happily. Mato smiled again. Yuu had been much happier since she was forced back into the Real World two months ago once she made friends with the three of them, no longer having to fight avoid getting hurt. Though there was still a bit of awkwardness between Mato and her. Mato was _still_ trying to wrap her head around the idea that her childhood memories of Yuu were fake and that Yuu wasn't actually Yuu, but her Otherself, Strength, acting like Yuu.

 _How did my life turn into one of mom's TV dramas_ , Mato thought to herself, lying flat on the desk again.

"Oh, Yuu, perfect timing," said Yomi excitedly, reaching into her bag again. "I made you a new bracelet. Here you go."

It was orange with a fist charm; exactly the same as Strength's symbol. Yuu took the charm bracelet, staring at it strangely, probably thinking the same thing that Mato was.

"Thanks, Yomi, I love it," said Yuu, smiling. She walked over to the desk on Mato's opposite side and flopped down in her seat, taking notice that one of her friends was half dead. "Whoa, what happened to you? You look like something I'd scrape off the sidewalk."

"Oh yeah, that's makes me feel so much better," said Mato sarcastically.

"Mato's been having nightmares and hasn't been getting enough sleep," answered Yomi sheepishly when Mato glared at her. "What? We're all friends here. We can tell each other anything."

"Hey, Yomi, about after school," said Kagari, thankfully taking the bespectacled girl's attention away

"So you've been having nightmares, huh?" asked Yuu, resting her head in her hands. "What're they about? After…after Black Rock Shooter, I figured nothing could scare you," she added in a hushed tone.

"Actually…," said Mato in an equally soft voice, checking that Yomi and Kagari weren't listening, "all my nightmares are _about_ Black Rock Shooter. It's like…like I'm her again, or maybe she's me, I don't know. Lately, I've been having these scary dreams about…about Black Rock Shooter, except they're…different…."

"What do you mean 'different'," said Yuu suspiciously.

"It's like…every time I have a dream, it's like in a different place," said Mato. "Sometimes I'm in giant collapsing cities or these weird empty worlds full of ghosts. And sometimes I end up in perfectly normal places like the beach or a grassy plain."

"Well, each of the Others worlds are different in Otherworld," said Yuu knowingly. "I've seen a lot stranger places in the years I was living there. But that can't be the part that bothers you, can it? Were you, by any chance, watching Black Rock Shooter slay one of the Others again. I know from personal experience that she can be really scary when she's trying to kill you – "

"Black Rock Shooter was scared," Mato interrupted, effectively shutting Yuu up. "She was really scared of something; she was running away. I really thought she was going to die – that I was going to die."

Yuu could only stare open mouthed at her, almost wondering if she had misheard Mato. Black Rock Shooter was the scariest in otherworld not just because she was dangerous, but because she was afraid of nothing. She faced giant mechanical spiders, an army of skeleton soldiers, and Yuu without ever flinching and taking a step back. Her fearlessness was deserved, Yuu supposed, because she healed at a rate much faster than any Other, able to be punctured and gored before standing back up second later. Yuu couldn't even imagine what could be so terrifying to make Black Rock Shooter run scared.

Yuu opened her mouth to say something on the matter when the teacher walked into class. Their classmates immediately took their seats while the teacher turned his back to them to write on the board.

"All right, settle down, we have a lot of work to cover!" the teacher told them.

"Let's go to the guidance counselor's office after class," Yuu muttered to Mato. "We should talk to Saya about this."

Mato said nothing, only nodding to acknowledge the plan as she submitted herself to the humdrum of middle school math.

* * *

The blessed sound of the bell ringing nearly an hour later was music to Mato's ears. She had almost fallen asleep twice in the middle of class, meaning she had come close to seeing Black Rock Shooter twice. Mato and her friends quickly packed up their things (meaning Mato just threw everything in her bag) and left the room together. Yomi and Kagari had Japanese Literature next so their group split up at the stairwell, while Mato was supposed to go to art and Yuu had science. But Mato and Yuu didn't go to their classes straight away; both of them went up to the next floor towards the guidance consoler – or the "Dawn Counseling" as Miss Irino's plague so aptly stated.

"Are you sure we should be skipping class like this," asked Mato nervously, looking around as if a teacher were about to jump out and bust them. "People still haven't forgotten about how I went missing while I was in Otherworld, you know."

"Relax," said Yuu plainly. "We're just a couple of troubled students going to the counselor's office for some advice. And if you're still worried, we can have Saya write up an excuse for us."

"Okay…," Mato mumbled uncertainly. "But why are we asking Miss Irino about…about you-know-who?"

"My connection to Strength hasn't been the best since she died," said Yuu, frowning. "I can feel that she's alive like the rest of the Others, but…well, it's really hard to reconnect with someone after something like that. Saya is the only one of us with a direct connection to Otherworld. She can communicate with Black Gold Saw and tell us what's going on over there."

"Well, when you put it that way, it does make sense," said Mato. "But what about – "

She was interrupted when they heard the sound of something smashing on the floor followed by a solid _thud_. Mato and Yuu turned to where the noise came from, only realizing that they were outside the counseling office.

"What was - ?" Mato started, but Yuu didn't stop and listen.

A panicked look on her face, Yuu grabbed the handle and threw the door open, making a loud slamming sound echo in the nearly empty hall. Both of them rushed inside; Mato gasped in horror. Saya's favorite coffee mug was smashed on the floor, the caffine creating a puddle, and the counselor herself laid helplessly on the floor. Saya looked worse than Mato had ever seen her before: skin as pale as a sheet, sweat running down her brow, and rivers of blood dripping from nostrils.

Mato backed up into the wall, hand over her mouth and her eyes twitching wide in terror. Yuu, on the other hand, rushed to her old friend's side, gingerly lifting the older woman into her arms. It looked even worse up close; Saya looked like she was going to die at any moment. Yuu shook her and slapped her lightly on the face hoping to get a reaction, but Saya showed no signs that she was even aware they were there. Tears of fear were starting to well up in Yuu's eyes, doubling her efforts to wake her up and started screaming:

"Saya! Saya! Please wake up! It's me, Yuu! Come on, wake up! SAYA!"

But the guidance counselor would not respond; her hand fell off Yuu's lap and slapped lifelessly on the floor. Yuu's panicked screeches increased by several decibels.

"HELP! SOMEBODY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE HELP US!"

Seconds later, teachers started rushing out of the classrooms and appeared in the office doorway. One look at Miss Irino and everyone flew into a flurry of motion. The instructors started cluttering around Saya – one of them left to call an ambulance – and tried to force Mato and Yuu out of the office. Mato allowed herself to be taken away, but Yuu wasn't going so easily. When one of the teacher's tried to pull her away from Saya, Yuu spun around and punched him in the face, breaking his nose. Mato didn't know what happened after that as she was led into the hallway, but it sounded like several teachers were working together to restrain her hysteric friend.

Mato's brain was working in overdrive. Just this morning she had a dream about Black Rock Shooter being attacked in Otherworld and now her only connection to the parallel reality looked close to death. This was too much to be coincidence. Something was happening to the Others, and the worst part was, Mato felt may have had something to do with it.

* * *

The mood on the way home from school was a somber one. Mato feet carried her down the familiar path though she herself was unaware of where she was going, her mind in a haze of thoughts. Yomi and Kagari lagged behind her, staring at Mato's back and occasionally exchanging worried glances. Yuu wasn't with them, of course; she had outright _demanded_ that she go to the hospital with Miss Irino, not caring that she was cutting school.

The silence between them was almost nerve-wracking; it felt like an awful repetition of the events from two months ago. Sharing one more worried exchange with each other, Yomi and Kagari sped up their pace so that they were walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Mato, not that she seemed to notice.

"Are you okay, Mato?" Yomi asked worried. "You don't look so good."

"No…no, I'm fine, don't worry about it," mumbled Mato feebly.

"Don't try acting tough around us," said Kagari seriously. "You're as white as a sheet; I'm almost scared you'll collapse in the middle of the street."

"I'm telling you, I'm fine," said Mato stronger, but just as halfhearted. "I'm just worried about Yuu and Miss Irino is all?"

"I don't blame you," said Yomi, nodded. "If I had seen something like that, I would feel a little faint too."

"I overheard the medics when they were carrying Miss Irino out of the school," said Kagari, frowning. "They have no idea what's going on with her. Aside from the bloody nose, she seemed perfectly healthy; no drugs or injuries. I heard one medic say that she might have had a mental breakdown, but I don't think that causes bloody noses, does it?"

"I have no idea," said Yomi. "It really is quite scary to think about. Yuu was really upset. I just wish we knew what happened to her."

Mato knew what happened to her: it was Black Gold Saw; something happened to her in Otherworld and now Saya was affected just like Kagari, Arata, and Yomi months ago. But, Mato remembered, when their others died, her friends just collapsed with no damage to their physical health. Though she couldn't rule out that Black Gold Saw could possibly be dead, it did make Mato wonder if something worse could have happened to leave Saya in such a state.

Mato's thought continued down this line of thinking until they reached the point where they reached their separation point. Yomi and Kagari had offered Mato to walk with her the rest of the way home, but Mato turned them down; she wanted a little more time with her thoughts. Her friends gave her one last worried glance before walking down the road to Yomi's house. Mato waved to them until they disappeared around the corner and let out a huge sigh. She felt bad about making her best friends worry, but there was no way they could understand what she's going through, especially not when it concerned physical manifestations of their feelings in an alternate universe; Kagari thought she was weird enough already.

Mato turned and continued walking home alone, staring up at the clear blue sky. By now, her mom was making her special anniversary dinner. At least there was something good about this overall rotten day, Mato thought. Compelling herself to forget her terrible day, Mato closed her eyes and began to sing once more:

" **Black Rock Shooter, doko e itta no? kikoemasu ka?** "

"I can hear you."

Her eyes snapped open, nearly tripping over her feet when the monotonous, yet frighteningly familiar, voice responded to her song. Mato stared straight ahead as someone emerged from one of the alleys. Her mouth ran dry and her eyes wide in permanent shock. She knew who this person was; she could never forget. The lengthy coat of a midnight-blue color, the stitches that ran across her abdomen, and her eyes – those piercing-blue eyes that could burn with a glance. Mato took a step back, trembling, only able to mutter the girl's name:

"Black Rock Shooter."

"Mato," said Black Rock Shooter calmly, slowly approaching her Real Self; Mato staggered backwards. "Mato, you have to listen to me. You are in danger. Everyone is in danger. You have to come with me."

"B-B-But how?" Mato stammered, taking another step back. "You can't be here. You should be in Otherworld. How did – "

"We don't have time to explain," said Black Rock Shooter impatiently. "There's something much bigger than Otherworld going on. And as it stands, we don't have the strength to handle it yet. That's why we need your help. Please, come with us and we'll explain everything."

"But I don't – you can't – I – " Mato sputtered, having no idea how to think or act in this situation. Though, for a moment, something did strike her odd. "Wait…what do you mean 'us'?"

Mato took another step back and her back connected with something solid yet soft. Craning her head back, Mato's jaw dropped as she stared into the eyes of the monster that constantly haunted her nightmares: Insane Black Rock Shooter. By now, Mato was sure her brain was starting to malfunction, not even trying to understand how Black Rock Shooter and Insane Black Rock Shooter could be separated into individuals. But what really drove her over the edge was the chibi-version of Black Rock Shooter lying on top of Insane Black Rock Shooter's head, looking down at her with a blank look.

"Ga!" Chibi Rock Shooter said, waving.

"I know you're confused right now, Mato," said Black Rock Shooter calmly. "Just come with us and let us explain."

"Okay…okay…," said Mato slowly. "Cloud you Just…give me one moment…"

Mato's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed on the ground; the three Rock Shooters stared.

"That went about as well as I expected it to," said Insane Black Rock Shooter.

"GA!" shouted Chibi Rock Shooter, holding her arms in the air jubilantly.

 **(Insert Black Rock Shooter theme song)**


	2. This Empty Feeling in My Soul

Black Rock Shooter © Huke  
All Characters © Respective Owners.

* * *

 **Record One: This Empty Feeling in My Soul**

 **World-4263(Gameverse)**

Stella always hated the city – it was too quiet.

She remembers the stories Frank Marion used to tell her during her stay in the United Earth Force; tales of his younger days when life was abundant. Stella used to hang on every word, trying to imagine the scenery as he described them: glistening cities packed with millions of people, rolling fields of evergreen grass, and a wide blue ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Stella wished she had been around before the invasion to see them for herself. She recalled one time when Rothcol –

That was when cold, harsh reality finally set in. Cities were only crumbling messes, fields were burned black as charcoal, and Stella couldn't even describe the ocean after it had been polluted with over a decade of toxins and other foreign contaminants. There was no putting a positive spin on this any longer; the world had died, the humans have become extinct, and Rothcol…. Stella pushed back the stinging sensation in her eyes and focused on the road ahead.

Flattening herself against her three-wheeled monster of a motorcycle, Stella swerved around the piles of debris spilling from the buildings as she continued north. Stella loved riding the Black-Trike (Rothcol had, unfortunately, been the one to named it). When she was riding the mechanical beast, feeling the wind whip through her hair, listening to the roar of the engine, it made her feel at peace made her forget all the death and destruction that surrounded her. The Black-Trike was her drug; she needed it so desperately to escape from reality, even for a few second, just so she could forget about Rothcol…forget how much she missed him…how much she lo –

A chirping beep was somehow heard over the howling engine; the source coming from inside her pocket. Stella reached inside and pulled out her flip phone (it was an ancient piece of technology she had recovered during one of her scavenges). She flipped the outdated device and held it to her ear.

"Nana, what's up?" said Stella.

"I was about to ask you the same question," came the voice of the only friend and sister, Nana Gray. "You should have been back ten minutes ago with the parts I needed. What's taking so long?"

"I ran into a few war machines that were still active," explained Stella. "It had to take them out before I could get the part from the City Eater you asked for. I also stopped by a convenience store on the way – there wasn't a whole lot there and most of what was left was expired, but I did manage to find a few cans. That'll give us rations for a couple more days at least."

"If everything works out, then we won't need rations," said Nana. "But I can't do anything until I have those parts."

"Just planning ahead," said Stella. "I'll be there in a few minutes; just keep working on it and I'll be there shortly."

Stella closed the phone after Nana said her goodbyes and pulled the throttle, zooming down the road at breakneck speed.

The UEF had constructed several dozens of hidden facilities during the decade long war against their mother, so it was only natural that Stella and Nana would take advantage and convert it into a home.

Stella rolled into the parking garage (which she coveted as her personal workshop for the Black-Trike) and killed the engine, sitting for a moment until the purr died out. She stepped off the motorcycle and walked around to the compartments on either side, taking out a plastic bag of cans and a piece of heavy-looking machinery. Stella hefted the machine part on her shoulder with a loud grunt, kicking the compartment doors shut, and started making her way down the narrow hallway. There were many doors that led to various parts of the facility, but Stella and Nana had never felt the need to use those rooms as there were only two of them now.

It was now that she realized how quiet it was without her Black-Trike; Stella could feel her heart hammering against her ribcage. _Damn it_ , Stella cursed herself; she had fought off war machine and mass-murdering aliens, but it was the quiet that scared her. She was so pathetic.

Nana called it Sedatephobia: the irrational fear of silence. She believed it might have been the result of Stella's decade long stasis in isolation, associating the silence with fear and abandonment. Stella didn't know if it was true or not; all she knew is that the lack of noise was making her skin crawl. She could already feel her hands starting to shake and sweat was starting to break out. Her breathing was coming in short bursts. She wanted to be back on the Black-Trike listening to the engine thunder in her ears. She needed it…she really, really needed it…she –

"Stella?" said Nana, appearing around the corner.

"Nana!" Stella screamed unintentionally loud, dropping the cans and parts and throwing herself into her sister's chest. Nana did not seem the least bit surprised and just pat her back reassuringly. "Nana, I'm sorry…. I…I thought I could – "

"You forgot to take your music player with you, didn't you?" asked Nana understandingly; Stella went still. "Stella, I know you think you have to be the stronger of the two of us, but there's nothing wrong with being afraid every now and again. It just shows that you're human."

"I hate it…," Stella muttered into Nana's shirt. "I don't like being afraid."

"Nobody does," said Nana, pulling them apart. "C'mon, let's not talk about this depressing topic any longer. Did you get the parts?"

"Uh, yeah, right here," said Stella, bending down to pick up the parts, thankfully undamaged. "Let me tell you, they weren't easy to find, given the size of those City Eaters. Do you really think your machine is going to work?" she added, handing off the parts.

"We won't know until we've tested it," said Nana, inspecting the haul. "Yeah, this is exactly what I need. With this, I should finally be able to finish the device within the hour. I'm gonna go ahead and install these parts now. Why don't you put away the rations and relax for a little; maybe listen to some music? I'll come get you when I'm done."

Stella nodded in acknowledgement and both went in opposite directions; Nana returned to her laboratory while her sister checked out the mess hall. Stella didn't take long to store the new supplies and do inventory. There wasn't much left; four cans of vegetables three cans of beans, four gallons of distilled water, and a bag of white rice. It was hardly a balanced diet, but times were tough they made do with what they had. It they rationed it properly, they would have enough for two weeks. But if Nana's experiment worked, they wouldn't have to worry about food much longer.

Stella went back to her room near Nana's lab; she chose it because Nana's gadgets always made a lot of noise and it helped her sleep at night. Besides a bed and desk, the room was very sparse; the UEF only allowed the necessities since they were in the middle of war. But there was one luxury that Stella kept for herself: an old music player she had found during an exploration to the city outskirts. She put the earplugs in and pressed play, relaxing to the smooth melody of Hatsune Miku. Stella fell back on her bed with a relieved sigh as Miku started singing _Black Rock Shooter_ – it was Stella favorite.

Stella could finally relax.

But, apparently, Stella was a little too relaxed. In almost no time at all, she heard someone banging on her doors and Stella instinctively shot up from her bed, her hands reaching for her cannon. But once she got her wits about her, she realized that it was probably just Nana coming to check up on her. Miku was singing _VOiCE_ when Stella took out the earplugs; that song was close to the end of the playlist; she must have been out for an hour at least.

Stella opened the door and saw her sister, covered in grease and sweat, but smiling nonetheless.

"It works," said Nana breathlessly. "Stella, it works. We can…we can finally leave."

Stella's eyes were wide in shock as she opened her mouth, both her voice seemed to have gotten lost in her throat. She couldn't believe it. Six months of hard work, it was finally finished. They could finally leave.

Nana wasted no time explaining, running down the hall with a spring in her step. This was the most elated Stella had ever seen her sister, thought she could hardly blame her; this was the biggest accomplishment of their lives since they won the war. Stella raced after her sister, sliding around corners and slamming into walls along the way. As Stella skidded to a halt in the middle of Nana's laboratory, her mouth fell in awe.

The back side wall of the laboratory had been outfitted with several dozen computers, wires, and other technical devices that Stella couldn't begin to understand, and all of them were connecting to a large silver ring. While Nana busied herself with fussing over one of the computers, Stella took a closer look at the device, but dared not touch it – she knew of her own tendency to destroy things.

"So this is it?" asked Stella. "You finally figured out how to get it working?"

"For the most part, yes," said Nana. "Professor Gibson – I mean, our father – was a much smarter man that anyone would have believed possible. His observations of the Apstole's allowed him to come to identify and reverse-engineer the effects of their trans-dimensional transport technology. Though his notes were still incomplete when he died, I was able to come towards my own conclusions. And after six months of experimentations, I finally completed it! And it works, Stella!" she added excitedly.

"You mean…," said Stella slowly. "With this…thing…we can travel to other worlds."

"With this gate, we can travel to other _dimensions_!" said Nana eagerly. "Imagine: worlds like this one except without the war. I saw them, Stella. I saw them through the gate: billions of humans living in massive cities, walking around without a care in the world. We finally did it, Stella. We finally found a way off this godforsaken world."

"Then what are you waiting for?" said Stella impatiently. "Start it up already!"

Nana was too eager herself to chastise Stella for her rudeness and went to work on the computers, inputting a complicated sequence into the machine. Electricity traveled through the coils to the machine as he charged up with a loud whistling noise. After a few seconds of patience, a ball of white energy formed in the center of the ring. Nana pulled a lever and the orb expanded until it completely filled the ring in a haze of milky-white.

Stella stared at the portal or a long while, almost afraid that all of this was a dream, but Nana stepped to her sister's side and took her hand, silently confirming that this was real. The duo nodded to each other and steeled their nerves as they took their first step through the portal into the new world.

* * *

 **World-8668 (TMNTverse)**

A milky-white portal ripped open in the back wall of one of the dirtiest alleys that Stella had ever seen – and she had seen a lot of dirty, disgusting alleys in their world. From the moment her and Nana's boots touched the trash littered street, their senses were overloaded with dozens of new sensations all at once. The thick smog of rotting food and waste product were the first to reach their noses, burning the nose hairs, and the din of many vehicles screeching and honking flooded their ears. Even the air was different: their world's atmosphere heavily polluted, while this world's air – though smelly – was much cleaner; Stella felt like she was breathing for the first time.

Curious to get a better look at their new home, Stella pulled away from her sister and dashed to the opening of the alleyway into the street. It was dark outside – probably somewhere after midnight – so there wasn't much to see other than the concrete buildings with their lights lit up in the night, but this didn't deflate Stella's elation. In some of the open windows, Stella could see people – actual people – walking by, some of them alone and some of them bunched up in groups. Stella did something she had never done before in her life and hoped would never do again out of embarrassment: she squealed like a little school girl.

"EEEE!" Stella squeaked; Nana laughed behind her hands. "It worked! It really worked, Nana! We're in another world!"

"I can see that, Stella," said Nana amusingly.

"I can't believe it actually worked!" Stella continued to yell joyously. "Where are we anyway?"

"Well, the dimensional coordinates were 8668," said Nana, walking over a retrieving a newspaper from a trashcan. "But according to this printed report, we're in a place called…New York City. Hmm, wonder what happened to the old one."

"Who cares?" said Stella. "All that matters is…we're here. This will be our new home, our new life."

"It's not as easy as you think it's going to be," said Nana, placing a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder. "But it's a hell of a lot better than what things were before. I don't know how, but we'll figure it out together."

Stella placed her hand on top of her sister's, smiling softly. The moment was a very sweet one…. Too bad it was ruined by a series of bangs and screams.

Stella and Nana turned their heads towards the noise. It sounded like it was coming from the building left of the portal entrance; an abandoned apartment complex by the looks of it. The sisters glanced at one another before running over, drawn by curiosity. The noise became louder when they returned to the alleyway and saw an open window just a little above them. Stella a nearby dumpster underneath the window, climbing up with Nana, and both peeked in over the sill. Inside, barely visible through the dim lighting, the two of them saw….

"Are those four Teenage Mutants fighting robot skeletons?" asked Nana strangely.

"They look more like Ninja Turtles kicking alien brain squids," Stella commented. "Is this normal for this dimension?"

"As far as I know, this is a world made for humans," said Nana thoughtfully. "Those turtles must be a byproduct of an accidental mutation – most likely a gelatinous substance based on their human like structure. Judging by the way their move and handle their weapons, I would say they've spend a great deal of training. As for those 'alien brain squids' as you call them, they're obviously not terrestrial in nature. Likely, they're invaders from another world trying to take over this one."

"As if White Rock Shooter wasn't enough," said Stella, rolling her eyes. "But compared to the War Machines, those brain robots don't look so tough. C'mon, let's get in there and help them."

"We can't just walk in and start picking fights, Stella," Nana hissed, grabbing her sister's arm before she could go anywhere. "There's still so much we don't understand about this dimension. We should spend the next few days learning more about this world before we throw ourselves into trouble."

"Relax, Nana," said Stella casually. "What's the worst that can – AAHH!"

Nana nearly fell off the dumpster, spinning her arms to keep balance, as Stella abruptly screamed and hit the concrete on her back. The living weapon thrashed on the ground, screaming murder with her hand clawing her chest where her heart would be as if trying to rip it out. Nana was immediately at her younger sibling's side, forcefully pinning Stella's arms to her sides as she started seizing up.

"Stella!" Nana cried worriedly. "Stella, talk to me! What's wrong? What's happening?"

"It hurts, its hurts, it hurts!" shrieked Stella loudly.

"What hurts?" asked Nana, instinctively checking her body for injuries. "Stella, I need you to tell me what's wrong!"

"It's gone!" wailed Stella. "I can't feel it anymore! It's gone, and it hurts!"

"What's gone?" said Nana fretfully, completely at a loss. Stella's body stopped convulsing as the younger clone drifted into unconsciousness. "Stella! Stella, wake up! Please talk to me! STELLA!"

Nana was completely terrified by now. She tried to shake her sibling awake and ever resorted to slapping her across the face, but received no response. She pressed her ear over Stella's breast and let out a breath of relief when she could hear Stella's heart beating underneath, albeit slower than normal. At least she is alive, Nana thought, so that was one less thing to worry about. They needed to find a shelter where Stella could recover; some place without mutant turtles and alien brain squids.

Nana looped her hands under Stella's armpits and started dragging her out of the alley when a bright light off in the distance caught her eye. At first, Nana believed it was the sun peeking over the horizon, but quickly realized that the brightness radiating from a wall of white that stretched as far as one could see. Nana's eyes narrowed thoughtfully taking notice of the wall of light and how it seemed to move closer towards them, covering the city like a white curtain. When the White reached the street they were on, Nana observed the light passing over a parked car on the side of the road and gasped in horror as the vehicle was disintegrated before her eyes.

Nana unconsciously took a step back. That light was dangerous; it would kill them instantly if they touched it. Nana's reaffirmed her grip under Stella's arms and started dragging her away when a powerful light radiated behind her. The Gray clone spun around and realized that another wall of light was coming from the opposite direction. Nana snapped her head back and forth between the Whites that appeared, swiftly dragging Stella back into the alley. The White had them trapped on both sides, leaving only one chance of survival left: the portal.

Nana dragged her sister as hard as she can towards the back wall as the light started to consume the buildings on either side. She could hear the turtle creatures screaming inside; Nana shut her eyes and tried to block them out their anguished cries as they were obliterated one after the other.

The White was encroaching on them very fast; there was only a few feet separating them from it. Adrenaline pumping through her veins, Nana gave Stella one last tug and threw her through the portal and immediately jumped in afterwards. The portal dissolved just as the last shred of the universe was wiped away.

* * *

 **World-4263(Gameverse)**

Stella shoots up, breath heavy and sweat dripping from her brow. Her hand went over her breast to slow down the furious beating of her heart. Once she had calm down, she noticed the thin sheet wrapped around her waist and looked at her surroundings. She was back in her room in their home dimension; Hatsune Miku was singing from her music player on the desk, which might have explained why she was able to sleep so peacefully until now.

Stella threw off the sheets and twisted around so that her legs hanged over the edge, burying her face in hands. The last thing she remembered before passing out was a painful feeling in her chest. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, not even when she was fighting in the war. It wasn't a physical pain, it was…it was like a piece of her soul that had once been there was now just…gone. It was like a part of her very being – a part she so desperately needed – was lost forever. And she couldn't explain why it happened.

She ran her hands through her hair and moaned tiredly. Nana would probably know what happened; she was smart like that. She was probably still working in the lab. Stella stood up and started walking to the door, but stopped for a moment, then walked back over to the desk to grab her music player first.

As she had expected, Nana was fiddling around with the portal computers, her brow creased as if caught in deep thought. The Gray clone managed to pry herself from her work when she noticed Stella walk in.

"Oh, hey, Stella," said Nana softly. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I've been better," said Stella. "Nana, do you know what happened to me? Or why we're back in our world."

"I can't explain for your unexpected panic attack," said Nana, turning back to her computer. "But as for why we are back in our original dimension, the reason being is because Dimension-8668 – the dimension where we saw those turtle creatures – no longer exists."

"Wait, what?" said Stella confused. "What do you mean it doesn't exist?"

"It's just as I said, that dimension no longer exists," said Nana monotonously. "After your episode and you passed out, the dimension suddenly started disappearing. You should have seen it Stella. It was like watching the whole world…evaporate out of existence; like a sea of nothingness just washing everything away. I had to drag you back through the portal before we were erased as well. When we got back, I checked the trans-dimensional map I had set up inside the computer's systems. Just as I had suspected; the dimension we had visited was nowhere to be seen. It's just…gone.

"How does an entire dimension just vanish?" asked Stella, scratching her head.

"I don't know," Nana said honestly, "but I suspect it had something to do with whatever caused you to going into an epileptic seizure; the timing of the two events was too close to being a coincidence. I'll have to do more research on the matter, but for now you should just take your time and rest – you were passed out for almost two hours."

"That explains the stiffness," said Stella, rolling her shoulders. "Well, in any case, at least we know that the portal works. So let's fire it up again and try to find a new-new home for us."

"I don't think that would be a good idea at the moment," said Nana; Stella stared at her strangely. "Like you, I had thought about searching for a new place to call home and started searching through the trans-dimensional map. But while I was looking between worlds, I saw something…unnerving."

"Unnerving?" Stella repeated.

"Yes," said Nana slowly. "In the past two hours, exactly five dimensions were erased from the map."

"Five dimensions?" shouted Stella shockingly. "You mean like, all of them were just…wiped out like that world we visited? That…that can't be just a coincidence, right? You don't think…that someone or some _thing_ is going around erasing entire dimensions, do you?"

"That's exactly what I think, Stella," said Nana. "The points of time in which each universe was removed are too close to each other to be anything other than a deliberate attack. It frightens me to think that there is something out there with enough power capable of eradicating entire realities."

"Isn't there something we can do?" asked Stella fretfully. "We can't just leave this alone. There are literally an infinite number of people that could be dying. And what if whatever is destroying those worlds comes after this one? I know there's nothing left here, but still."

"I agree with you, Stella, which is why I've been preparing," said Nana, turning around and walking to her sister, carrying a strange handheld device; it looked like a miniature flying saucer with a red orb on top. "While monitoring the destruction of the other worlds, I've noticed a pattern. Before the erasure process begins, a short burst of extra-dimensional energy is released into the world's atmosphere. I managed to isolate the wavelength of the energy signature and download it into the tracker. With this, we can find out where the energy is coming from and possibly prevent the world from being destroyed."

"Nana, you are amazing," said Stella impressively, snatching the device. "Well, what are we standing around here for? Let's get moving."

"I've already input the coordinates for the next world," said Nana, walking back to the machine. "Dimension-5466 – a world where genies exist. Hopefully we're not already too late."

Like before, Nana activated the machine and the milky-white portal appeared in the ring. Nodding to each with determination in their eyes, the sisters jumped through the gateway into the new world.

* * *

 **World – 5466 (Shantaeverse)**

Stella and Nana lurched through the opening in space-time, nearly stumbling on the crooked cobblestone street. Steadying herself, Stella was the first to take in their new environment while Nana focused on her tracker. She had never seen them before, but Rothcol had shown her books of how the world looked before the Apostles had destroyed it. Based on the architecture, she had assumed they were somewhere reminiscent to Arabian culture except she could smell salt in the air – an island, maybe? It as moments later that Stella noticed a banner hanging between two buildings that read:

"Welcome to Scuttle Town?" said Stella aloud. "That name's almost as bad as New York City."

"We didn't come here for sight-seeing, Stella," said Nana strictly. "We need to find the source of the Erasures before this world is – oh, for the love of – you stupid piece of – "

It appeared that Nana's fancy tracker didn't work as well as she expect, Stella thought. The Gray clone glared at the device like it had somehow insulted her and started shaking it; parts were rattling around inside. When that didn't work, she smacked the head plate; the red orb glowed and a white arrow appeared, pointing towards the town square.

"Finally, the stupid thing," Nana grumbled. "Looks like we got lucky – the source of the Erasures is in this town."

Just as the words left her lips, an explosion went off somewhere deep in the town. The sisters could see the smoke pluming from the distant building and the screams of dozens of panicked citizens.

"Oh crap, are we too late?" asked Stella worriedly.

"No point standing here waiting to find out!" Nana shouted, already taking off into a run.

Stella did a brief double-take and raced after her sister, easily catching up and taking the lead due to her natural fitness. The pair of the reached the street in under a minute and turned the corner towards the commotion until they realized a stampede of people were running at them. Stella grabbed Nana and flattened themselves against the wall of the building behind them, allowing the Arabian-styled inhabitants to pass by without injury. When the last of them disappeared out of sight, Stella and Nana stepped back onto the street and turned toward the cause of the commotion.

What looked to be one of the larger buildings had been knocked over and partially set on fire, explaining the smoke. It was Stella's sharp eyes that noticed a dark figure half-buried underneath the rubble; it was a girl. She pointed this out to Nana and both of them rushed over, pushing off the rocks and pulling the victim out from underneath. Once they were at a safe distance, they flipped her over on her back; Stella gasped.

The girl was around the same age as them with naturally tanned skin and luxurious, midnight-black hair tied up in a high ponytail. She dressed in blue sequin and reminded Stella of those belly dancers that Rothcol liked to stare at in pictures; Stella also remembered how she burned those pictures in private. But perhaps the most shocking feature of the Arabian dancer was her face –

"She looks just like me," said Stella, staring down at the dancer as if looking in a mirror. "Why does she look like me?"

"That's to be expected when traveling between dimensions," said Nana knowingly. "In almost every universe, there is going to be at least one counterparts to something you know, whether it's a place, a thing, or in this case, and person. Hmm…" she added, looking down at her tracker, which was now pointing at the unconscious dancer. "It looks like her face isn't the only thing disturbing. According to my tracker…she's the source of the Erasure."

"But how can she – " Stella began, but was cut off when the dancer shot up, panting heavy. "Whoa, whoa, easy there. You're okay now."

"Wha – what ha – where is - ?" the dancer sputtered when she noticed the sister, particularly Stella. "Um…why do you look like me?"

"Would you believe that I am you?" said Stella awkwardly; the dancer stared blankly. "Okay, let's start over. My name is Stella and this is my sister, Nana" – said clone nodded – "and we're um…we're not from this world, per se."

"Wouldn't be the strangest thing I've seen," said the dancer. "My name is Isra, but everyone calls me the Black Djinn."

"What happened, Isra?" asked Nana.

"I don't know," said Isra, biting her bottom lip. "Shantae and I were performing our dance routine like we do every Tuesday and" – she gasped horrifically – "Shantae! Where is she? Is she all right? Please tell me she'll all right."

"Your friend is alive, but only barely," said a strong, masculine voice.

The trio turned their heads, now noticing the stalwart figure appearing atop the rubble. Tall, masculine with deathly gray skin and a curtain of shocking white hair, his very presence reverberated with power; a power that Stella was dreadfully familiar with. His left arm was held out in the air, keeping a broken-looking woman suspended off the ground. The woman was naturally tan like Isra and her rich lavender hair was tied in a high pony tail, dressed in a matching dancer's outfit made from red sequin. In all honest opinion, she was quite beautiful…if it were for the rivers of blood dripping down her skin.

The man tossed the dancer to the ground; her face twisted into ugly expression, letting them know she was still alive but in deep anguish. Isra cried out to her friend and rushed to her side, resting the injured dancer's head on her lap. Stella and Nana stood root in place, glaring up at the man with a mixture of shock and anger.

"SAHA," Nana spoke the man's name with venom. "Are you the same SAHA we know, or an alternative version?"

"Put your mind at ease, Gray Child," said SAHA calmly, "for I am the same man you have encountered in the past."

"Yeah, that makes me feel so much better," said Stella sarcastically. Quick as a flash, she drew out her Rock Cannon and aimed at the elder Apostle. "All right, start talking! Starting with, how are you still alive? I thought I killed you last time!"

"Indeed, you did, Stella," said SAHA. "You killed me and that is not something to be taken lightly. I was considered the strongest of the Seven Apostles, and you somehow managed to overcome me. And then, against all odds, you succeeded in slaying your mother, who I believed to be the most powerful in our universe. For that, you have earned my utmost respect," he added with a small bow.

"I don't want your respect!" Stella snapped. "How are you still alive after I killed you? Are you the one going around erasing universes? I thought you were more honorable than that!"

"I understand if you have questions, but this is not the right time," said SAHA as he slowly walked down the debris to street level. "I have simply come here to retrieve the girl. Please, stand aside and return to your own world before this one is erased."

"Yeah, right!" said Stella angrily, loading her cannon. "Eat rock!"

She shot four black rocks burning with blue flames in rapid-fire succession, but SAHA made no obvious effort to avoid them. Rather he took three of the rock straight to the chest; the stones shattered on contact and left no apparent mark. SAHA snatched the fourth stone out of the air, crushing it into a fine black powder.

"He couldn't do that before," said Stella, stunned.

SAHA moved into a fighter's stance; one palm was held out facing Stella and the other was clenched into a fist at his waist. With a powerful grunt, the leader of the Apostles punched his fist at the air. A shockwave vibrated through the atmosphere and flew towards the Rock Shooter, knocking the girl off her feet and into the wall of a building on the opposite side of the square. Stella grimaced as her body impacted the surface, leaving an indentation, and dropped to her hands and knees.

"He couldn't do that before either," said Stella, wincing as she held her side.

SAHA turned away from Stella to face Isra, who leered at the Apostle in contempt, reaffirming her hold over her friend. But while his back was turned, Nana appeared in the air above him with her jagged longsword poised over her head to slash. The Gray clone swiped down against SAHA's back, but rather than drawing blood, sparks crackled upon contact with his skin as if clashing against metal. Nana stared; even going all out, her sword didn't leave so much as a scratch.

SAHA peeked over his should, staring down at her. The Apostle swung his fist around faster than Nana could follow and backhanded her across the face. Nana hit the road with impressive force and slid away several feet, uproot dozens of cobblestones along the way. She winced as she pushed herself up by her elbows; she could feel the entire left side of her face starting to swell.

"He's even stronger than he was before," said Nana, her voice partially muffled by the inflammation. "And he was the strongest of all the Apostles. Stella…I don't think we can beat him by ourselves."

"I beat him before and I can do it again," said Stella stubbornly. She shot around three rounds of black rocks, but was met with the same result as last time. "Son of a – how did he get this strong in eight months? Maybe we can – "

"W…wait, please…stop…," said Shantae weakly as Stella pivoted round to her. "You…you can't…beat him…. He's…he's too strong…."

"Shantae, don't speak," said Isra softly, petting the dancer's head. "We need to get you to Mimic – he can fix you up."

"Please…just…listen to me," Shantae spoke, coughing up a few droplets of blood. "I don't know…who that man is…but he's more powerful…than anyone…I've ever met…. You can't beat him…not on your own at least…. You need…to run away…and gather as many friends…as you can…. And please…take Isra…with you…."

"I can't just leave you here!" yelled Isra indignantly.

"Yeah, there's no way we're running away from a fight," said Stella.

"Listen to me!" Shantae said forcefully; her body racked with more coughing. "Just listen…. That man is after Isra…he doesn't care about anyone else…. It was supposed to…be a secret…but Isra…Isra is the Black Star…of our world…. That's what he's after…. If the Black Star is taken…if he gets his hands on Isra…then our world will be erased…. Please…you have to take Isra away…for everyone's safety…."

"So the Black Stars are what's causing the Erasures," murmured Stella thoughtfully. "But what are the Black Stars?"

"I am sorry," said SAHA, suddenly appearing behind them, "but I am afraid I cannot allow you to learn that information."

Stella spun around on her heels, throwing her Rock Cannon outward, but SAHA was much faster than she was and was already throwing his fist at her face. Just as the blow was within inches of connecting –

 _ **BOOM!**_

Stella, Isra, and SAHA covered themselves as a large explosion went off in the building directly to their right; the heat of the flames washing over them like a wave. They watched at the wreckage for a moment until the distant echoes of tiny explosions drew their attention toward the shoreline. A ship – a pirate ship, judging from the skull and crossbones sail – was firing a hailstorm of cannoballs onto the town.

"Risky Boots…," said Shantae, grinning weakly. "Her timing…couldn't be more perfect…."

The pirate ship captain by Risky Boots shot another volley on Scuttle Town and, strangely enough, all of the cannoballs seemed to be flying in SAHA's direction. The leader of the Apostles crossed his arms as the ammunition exploded around him, covering in a torrent of flame. When the head died, SAHA was still standing looking unscathed as before, but was unable to react when another volley of cannonballs dropped on top of him. Stella watched out of curiosity. Whoever this Risky Boots was, she seemed to be taking excessive lengths to knock down SAHA.

While SAHA was pinned down by the cannon fire, Nana moved over to her sister and the others, holding her side.

"Stella, we have to go now," said Nana. "This might be our only chance to get away."

"But we can't just leave!" Isra agrued

"Look at him," said Nana, gesturing to the Apostle as another volley fell on top of him. "He's taking direct hits from over two dozen cannonballs and not even feeling them. We don't stand a chance the way we are now."

"I hate to admit it, but she's right," said Stella, resting a hand on Isra's shoulder. "Look, I get why you're worried, but if what your friend said is true, then all this trouble will disappear when you leave. I promise we'll make things right eventually, but we have to go now before SAHA starts coming after us again."

The dark-haired dancer looked conflicted. It was clear that she wanted to stay and fight for her people and friends, but the difference in power between her and SAHA was overwhelming; she would be slaughter in an instant. As she weighed her options, Isra felt a hand on top of her own and looked down, seeing Shantae weak but sincere smile.

"Go," said commanded. "We'll be fine. As long as you live, we will survive."

Isra opened her mouth to say something to the half-genie, but stopped herself and nodded slowly. The Black Djinn gently rested Shantae on the ground and turned to Stella and Nana, silently asking them to lead. The three girls broke into a run and disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. SAHA glared at their retreating backs as another shower of cannon fire dropped on him.

* * *

 **World-4263(Gameverse)**

The portal closed behind them as the girls touched safely in Nana's lab. While the Gray clone went straight for the gateway's computer, Isra stared openmouthed around her.

"Whoa," said Isra in awe. "This is your world? This is amazing! Just look at all these wondrous machines!"

"Trust me, this is about the only good part of this world," said Stella humorously, walking around to meet her sister. "So now we know that SAHA is alive – still don't know how that's even possible. How much you want to bet that the other Apostles are still around, too."

"I would say that's a safe bet," said Nana grimly. "At the rate the worlds are disappearing, it can only be assumed that more than one person is causing the Erasures. And if they're anything like SAHA, they're even more powerful than they were eight months ago. It was a stroke of luck that you managed to defeat them the first time Stella, but I don't think it will happen a second time. SAHA will no doubt tell them about us; they'll be waiting for us."

"Yeah, but at least we know what they're after now," said Stella, leaning against the computer. "The Apostles are going around dimensions hunting Black Stars. From what we know, Black Stars are people and if they're killed, the entire world is erased with them."

"I doubt it's as simple as killing them, Stella," said Nana. "People die every day, but that doesn't cause the whole world to vanish. No, they're using some other method – neblade, most likely."

"Either way, we know what they want and that gives us an edge," said Stella, swiping Nana's tracker from her belt. "If they want to hunt Black Stars, then we have to find them first. That way we can stop the Apostles from wiping out the multiverse and we can build up an army to fight back against them."

"It's the only plan we have until we find out their motive," said Nana.

"So what is gonna happen?" asked Isra, sounding worried. "What do we do next?"

"Isn't it obvious, Isra?" said Stella as Nana opened the portal to the next world. "Now we go recruiting."


	3. The Color of Truth is Gray

Black Rock Shooter © Huke  
All Characters © Respective Owners.

* * *

 **Record Two: The Color of Truth is Gray**

 **World-6647 (Noirverse)**

Slate City – an urban cesspool that thrived in the armpit of this pitiable black and white world (and I'm not speaking figuratively; this world is in black and white). Most people who don't live here called it the worst place to live, and you wanna know something, they're right. A city littered with butchers, whores, drug dealers, and vagabonds; the town was spiraling further into dilapidation every day while these animals still walked the streets. Anyone who tried to change things usually ended up wearing cement loafers. But hey, I like a challenge.

My name is Mercy Gray – I'm a private investigator working in the nicer parts of town. And by nice, I mean I don't have a communal dumpster directly under my office window. I used to work as a detective for the SCPD, but me and the chief…we had some differences on how things should be running 'round here. But even after I left, the chief always finds a way to bump off his workload on me when his boys are too lazy to get off their asses, kinda like this one.

I had been called in to investigate a murder case that the boys in blue didn't feel like handlin' (lucky me). I didn't normally accept these kinds of cases – my field of work mostly involved finding missing kids or cheating spouses – but rent was coming up and I needed the money. So I sobered myself up, washed my face, combed my gray hair, and threw on my favorite black trench coat and matching fedora. Hey, a girl has to look her best even on a murder case, right?

Nearly half an hour later, I was in the office of Antonio Zucco, a self-made business man who claimed to have made his wealth my writing novel. Biggest load of bull I ever heard; I knew the kind of man Tony Zucco really was. He was a crime boss; one of the big guys workin' for the city Mafia. Everything he earned he stole through gambling, drug-trafficking, and forcing innocent people to buy his 'protection'. Of course, there was no proof of it – the guy was good at covering his tracks. So when I walked into the office and found the man dead on the floor, I didn't feel the least bit sorry for him.

I kneeled down next to the corpse, my dull, gray eyes wandering up and down his form. Zucco was on his back, blood splashed across the front of his three-piece suit. The point of origin was the knife in his abdomen; it looked like the blade had punctured his liver, causing him to bleed out. His hands were positioned as if they had tried to grab something, but failed. It was very strange. I ran across his, brushing my fingers over his knuckles.

"No signs of bruising, which means he didn't put up a fight," I said aloud. I moved up to his face, examining his lips and taking a deep breath. "No toxins either. Well, unless you consider gin a toxin. With no signs of struggle, that means Zucco knew the person, probably even friendly with 'em. He likely didn't suspect that they would've killed 'em. Shows how much he knew."

I stood up and looked over at Zucco's desk. Besides myself, there was one other person in the room: that gal who called in the murder. She was a sweet little thing if I had ever seen one. She looked Asian, barely peeking over sixteen years with silky black hair touching past her shoulders, her adorable face now smeared with mascara and tears. Among his many depravities, Tony Zucco had a fondness for young Asian woman, mostly bought off the human traffic ring; another reason not to miss him.

She looked very distraught; any dame would be if they walked in to work in the morning and found their boss dead. But I needed answers, so I couldn't afford to play nice right now.

"So you say you found him like this, Miss…," I asked slowly.

"Khan," she answered. "Min Khan."

"And what did you say your relationship with Zucco was again, Miss Khan?" I asked her.

"I didn't," said Min Khan, looking a little apprehensive. "But if you must know, I was his secretary. I was mostly taking calls and filing paperwork."

Yeah, secretary. And I was his Aunt Tilly. I don't need to be a detective to know what she really was to Tony Zucco. Despite appearances, Zucco was a smart man, able to break his way into the rackets from a young age and work his way up in the Mafia. He didn't need no pencil pusher to clean up the joint; Min Khan was just his daily eye candy.

"Do you know anybody that would do Zucco harm?" I questioned her.

"I'm not sure if you realize it, but Mr. Zucco was involved with a lot of bad people," said Min Khan. "I'm always seeing these men walking in and out of his office every few days, sometimes I can hear them shouting through the walls. He made a lot of enemies."

"Any of them you might recognize?" I continued to interrogate.

"Not a whole lot, but a few," said Min Khan. "I remember Sal Maroni, Carmine Falcone, and Rupert Thorne. There were some men from those gangs wandering the streets as well: the La Eme, the Bratva, the Yakuza, the Triad – "

"Wait, did you say the Triad?" I interrupted, a thought suddenly occurring to me.

I kneeled down to Tony Zucco's body again, this time paying careful attention to the murder weapon. The handle was golden – or at least something that looked similar to gold – with a rather intricate pattern to it. Now I couldn't claim to be an expert, but what I had believed to be scratches on the side of the handle were now starting to look like Chinese characters. Peeking around the other side of the blade, I noticed the indentation of a dragon; how did I miss that?

"This knife," I spoked aloud. "I've seen this kind before. The kind used the Crimson Dragon, Zheng, and his Triad goons."

"Mr. Zheng?" said Min Khan. "Yes, I remember him coming here one time. Mr. Zucco had some issues with him in the past. Particularly over a jade dragon statue Mr. Zucco purchased a few months back in auction."

"Yeah, read 'bout that in the papers," I told her. "From what the reports were sayin', Zucco wasn't interested in buyin' the thing until Zheng put up the bid. Zucco practically paid a fortune for it, but he made sure that Zheng didn't get it in the end. Smug bastard didn't like sharing his toys."

"Mr. Zheng came into the office the next day," said Min Khan, walking to one of the tacky paintings on the wall. I wasn't too surprised when Min Khan pulled it sideways and exposed the wall safe behind it; it would be just like Zucco to have one. "He was very mad; said that the statue belonged to his ancestors and that demanded it back. Mr. Zucco refused, of course. He hid it here for safekeeping…."

As Min Khan turned the dial towards the appropriate combination, I couldn't help wonder how she had come to acquire this information. Certainly Tony Zucco didn't tell her; he didn't make it this far in the business by handing out sensitive secrets. Has she been eavesdropping on him? The thoughts continue to fly through my head until the loud rumble of the safe unlocking brought me back to reality. Min Khan opened the safe and what we both saw inside was the least surprising thing this morning – "

"It's gone!" shouted in Khan, staring agape at the empty safe. "But how?"

"It don't matter," I told her. "All that matters is that I know got a date with the Crimson Dragon in Chinatown."

* * *

Chinatown was Slate City's ridiculous attempt to make the two more 'cultural diverse' and 'accepting of all people'. Another pile of bull to add to the already growing mountain of crap. Chinatown, Little Italy, and freaky little Mexican district on the lower eastside; they were territory markers. Everyone knew that gangsters like the Triads owned these areas of the city through a combination or bribery, blackmail, and placing a few choice people in wooden kimonos. And if you didn't play by their rules, you would find yourself six feet under pretty quickly.

It's a wonder why I never visited more often.

A ten minute drive from Zucco's office and I was already parked outside a Chinese bar an informant told me was Zheng's favorite hiding hole. The place was called the Crimson Dragon; it figures an egomaniac would name the property after himself. I took a final drag of smoke that I had lit on the way here; God knows it's the only thing that keeps me going straight in this messed up town. Once finished, I put the butt out in the tray on the dashboard, topped myself with my favorite fedora, and exited the car, strode towards the bar entrance.

The bell above the door rang when I stepped inside; so much for keeping things quiet. I took a look around the "establishment". It was pretty much how I figured it: an average looking bar decorated with a buncha foreign crap like those weird paper laterns, more than a dozen dragon statues, and a bunch of overindulgent paintings with Chinese characters in the corners. Yes, we know you're from China, we get it already. Yeesh.

There were only a handful of patrons occupying the bar, all of them Asians dressed in fancy three-piece suits and suits, and all of them glaring at me from the moment I stepped inside. Had the circumstances been a little different, I would have felt flattered to have all eyes on me. But there was only one person whose attention I wanted, and he happened to be sitting in the back of the bar, one leg crossed over the other, arms on the backrest without a care or concern. His widows' peak and pointed mustache looked even stupider in person than it did in the papers.

I started to approach Zhang, but was stopped when two of his thugs moved from the counter and blocked my way, arms crossed like they were trying to act tough. I was kinda cute; the way they thought they could stop me. I grew up in the mean parts of Slate City and I wasn't afraid of a bunch of dressed up monkeys with a bunch of fancy kung-fu moves. Before I could punch the dumb-looking one (I was still decided which one that was) Zhang held up his hand. The goons took the sign and returned to the counter, though they still glared at me out of the corners of their eyes.

"Detective Gray, to what do I owe the pleasure?" said Zhang, trying to act all smooth-like. What a tool.

"So you've heard of me, have you?" I responded in a similar tone.

"You've made quite a reputation for yourself," said Zhang. "After that incident where you exposed the drug route owned by the Yakuza a few months back, the other crime organizations have become weary of you. Particularly the Mafia – I heard Boss Maroni was sweating bullets when you started poking your nose around his restaurant in Little Italy.

"It's funny how you would mention the Mafia…. "I began.

"I take it this visit has to do with the murder of Tony Zucco," said Zhang, not looking too concerned. The look of surprise must have been obvious because he continued: "Word travels fast in this city; it's how the major crime families manage to stay ahead of each other. The fact that you show up in my bar must mean you think I murdered Zucco."

"Did you?" I asked straight out.

"I never liked Zucco," Zhang admitted. "That man always took things that were precious to me. First it was my territory, then it was my daughter, and then he had the nerve to steal my family's priceless heirloom: the jade dragon statue. I won't deny that the idea of killing Zucco hasn't crossed my mind, but it was not the right time. Any attack made against Zucco would have given the Mafia incentive to strike back against the Triad. And I don't wish to waste my time deal with the likes of Falcone and Thorne."

"Then how do you explain this?" I said, whipping out the dagger I had hidden in my coat and stabbing it on the table. "These daggers are specially made, used only by members of the Triad. And I found this one lodged in Tony Zucco's liver; it's what caused him to bleed out. Are you honestly going to sit there and tell em you had nothing to do with it?"

"Yes, that is one of ours," Zhang confirmed. "But it could have easily been stolen off one of my men."

"You also had a motive," I pushed. "Everyone knew you and Zucco hated each other, especially after Zucco bought that precious statue you wanted so badly. And when I walked into his office this afternoon, Zucco is dead and the statue is missing. I even have a witness testament saying you had visited Zucco recently. All evidence points to you being the most likely suspect. So you can either tell me what I want to hear or we can tall to the chief. With all this evidence, even he can't find a way out of letting you slide."

The smirk on Zhang's face never left him, but his eyes started to wander around the bar. I heard the scrapping of bar stools and looked out of my peripherals. The two boys at the counter had gotten up and were flanking my left side while two men from the booths were moving in on my right. I stood up straight, well away of the four men surrounding me, and glared at Zhang.

"I continue to deny that I had anything to Tony Zucco's murder," said Zhang, "but I can't have you running to the police with anything. They might start snooping in places they shouldn't and might find something I don't want found. You must understand my position, Gray."

"I understand that you are a killer," I said strongly. "And I will take you in."

"You can try," said Zhang, and then he snapped his fingers.

At once, the man on the far left through a punch at my face, but I pulled back far enough to avoid it. I grabbed him by the wrist and used his momentum to carry him around, throwing him into the two men on my right; all three crashed through one of the tables. The fourth goon snuck up behind me and bear hugged me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. Rather than struggle to break free like most dames would, I lifted my foot and slammed it hard on his toes. The big palooka howled, exposing his chin for me to headbutt with the back of my head. The dimwit let me go and I turned on him, grabbing him by the arm and then throwing him over my shoulder over a table littered in beer bottles, collapsing the entire thing.

The three meathead from before were starting to get up; two of them rushed me with their fists pulled back. The first one took a swing at me head, but I ducked under his arm and face the second goon. Just as he was about to take a shot, I quick-jabbed him in the throat. The goon chocked and stumbled backwards until the back of his legs touched a chair. I wasted no time kicking him in the chest, causing him to fall backward over the chair and hit his head on the edge of the table. The mook hit the floor out cold.

Someone yelled at me from behind and I just remembered about the other goon standing behind me. It didn't have time to react fast enough before the meathead tackled me to the ground, knocking over the tables around us. The jerk grabbed me by the back of the head, pulling my hair hard, and then slammed my face into the linoleum once, twice, three times. I could feel myself bleeding through the nose; I needed to break out before the palooka did real damage.

That's when I noticed the empty beer bottle rolling in front of me; it must have fallen off the table during the fight. I snatched the bottleneck, twisted my upper body around to face the mook, and smashed it over his face. The guy squealed like an injured pig; he felt right over with glass shard sticking over of his fat head. Spinning myself around on the floor, I pulled up my leg and kicked the grunt as hard as I could in the stomach, sending him sliding across the bar, knocking over a lot of tables along the way.

It didn't have time to catch my breath when the fourth and final mook ran at me and took a swing with his leg. I rolled myself backward before the kick could connect and jumped back up to my feet, fists brought up in front of me. The big palooka took several swings at me, but I managed to dodge every one of them – Ted was right; boxing lessons are useful. The thug took a wild swing at me and, when I saw the opening, my fist connected with his chin for a strong uppercut. The goon stumbled backward, looking disoriented, giving me the perfect chance to grab him by the front of his suit and throw him over the bar. The barkeep ducked as the brute smashed into the display shelf above him – what a waste of good liquor.

I was panting hard, trying to catch my breath, and took a good look at my handy work. Four thugs all beaten and out cold in the wreckage of the Crimson Dragon's bar. Not a bad days work if I do say so myself. I wiped the blood from my nose as I turned to Zheng. The asshole was still sitting there, looking smug.

"So, Miss Gray," Zheng said in that obnoxious holier-than-thou tone "you trash my bar, my men, and insult me. Anything else I can do for you?"

"You can start by answering my questions, buddy," I said to him, pulling up the only usable chair.

"I believe that I have," said Zhang confidently. "I already told you, I had nothing to do with the murder of Antonio Zucco, much to my deep regret. I will admit to wishing to have done the deed myself. I can also assure you that the jade dragon statue is not here either. If you still don't believe me, you're free to search the premises…or what's left of it, at least."

"You sound so confident," I said, grimacing. "Even when all the odds are stacked against you, you still try to pretend that you're innocent."

"I am guilty of many things, Miss Gray, but not this," said Zhang. "I always knew that Zucco would end up getting himself killed by crossing the wrong people. I remember specifically telling my daughter that when she ran off with that scoundrel. As a concerned father, I only hope she had the common sense to leave that man before she got involved in this mess."

"Your daughter…." I mumbled.

I stared at the Chinese dagger I had stabbed in Zhang's table, thinking hard. The dagger obviously belonged to Zhang's group and it was undeniably the weapon that had killed Zucco, but there had been something that bugged me since showing up at the Crimson Dragon. Tony Zucco's body showed no signs of a struggle. But if it had been one of the Triad that had killed him, he would have put up at least some type of defense. There was the option of a surprise attack, but as far as I saw, the windows had not been busted in and the only way into the office was through the front door. That meant that the killer would have walked straight up to Zucco when they killed him….

And that's when it hit me. Someone from the Triad had murdered Zucco, but it wasn't Zhang or his minions. The answer had been right in front of me the entire time….

"You know what, I do believe you," I told Zhang, standing up.

"You do, do you?" asked Zhang, looking smug as ever. "I assume this means you figured out the identity of Zucco's murderer?"

"Yeah," I answered. "Now if you excuse me, I have a train to catch."

I walked towards the door, stepping over the mess of broken tables, shattered glass, and unconscious goons.

"Oh, I send a bill to the chief of police," I told Zhang. "I'm sure he'll love that."

I slammed the door behind me before Zhang could get a word in.

* * *

I drove towards the train station as fast as I could, not caring that I was breaking over fifty state laws in the process; the chief used to chew me out a lot for this. But I was still kicking myself for not having seen the obvious clues. There had been only one person that would have been in the perfect position to commit the crime without raising suspicion. The acquisition of the knife and the animosity between Zucco and Zhang had been the perfect cover story. They had played me for a fool, but there was no way in hell I was going to let them get away.

I screeched in front of the station and jumped out of my car without parking properly; dozens of people were honking angrily in the background. There were a lot of trains getting ready to leave; the suspect would obviously want to take the soonest departure out of the city before transferring to another train. One quick look at the schedule and I was already running down the platform, wading through the sea of people.

To anyone else, it would have been impossible to spot one person in this crowd. But I am a private investigator – it's my job to find people who couldn't be found. In no time at all, I spotted the suspect at the far end of the platform, waiting to board. I sprinted when the doors started opening, shoving every one out of my way to reach them. Just as they were about to set foot on the train, I reached out and grabbed them by the wrist, pulling them back out.

"Going somewhere, Miss Khan?" I said.

Oh, um, Detective Gray," said Min Khan, looking very nervous, her finger fidgeting with her large handbag. "Oh, yes, I was thinking of taking a trip out of town. After everything that happened, I thought it best to get out for a little while and collect myself."

"You seemed very quick to leave," I told her. "You didn't even stick around to see Zucco's murderer brought to justice, being a prime witnesses to the murder and all."

"Oh, yes, quite," said Min Khan, now scratching her throat uncomfortably. "So does this mean that you caught Mr. Zheng?"

"Interestingly enough, I don't think it was Zheng that killed Tony Zucco," I said.

"Oh no," said Min Khan; she took a noticeable step back.

"Something's been bothering me sense I started the investigation," I informed her calmly. "Like I said earlier this afternoon, there were no signs of struggle or poisoning, meaning the murderer would have had to have been someone Tony Zucco was friendly with to get that close. Now I don't know a lot about Zucco, but I don't think he's the type of man to have a lot of friends. Then there's the case of the missing statue – "

"Didn't the murderer take it?" said Min Khan.

"Yes, but the question is how," I continued. In order to steal the statue, they would have first had to have known where the safe was hidden. The safe wasn't tampered with, so that meant the murderer had to know the combination beforehand to avoid being caught. Most people would believe that Zucco had emptied the safe himself because he was the only one that knew the combination. But earlier when I was investigating his office, you didn't seem to have any trouble getting in."

"Wait…are you saying that…?" said Min Khan hesitantly. "But that's absurd. I couldn't have killed Mr. Zucco."

"Couldn't you?" I argued. "You were probably the only person Zucco would have let get close enough to kill him without a fight and you knew the combination to the safe, where you could have stolen the statue unnoticed. Once you cleaned him out, you called the police and played the role of the disgruntled witness. It was the perfect cover up."

"But what about the knife?" Min Khan shouted in a panic; she was holding her handbag very tightly. "You said yourself that those knives only belonged to Mr. Zheng's group. How could I have gotten my hands on it if I was the killer?"

"That was the tricky part," I answered. "I was on the right track thinking that someone from the Triad had to have been the killer, but I was wrong thinking that it was Zhang or his men that did it. I wasn't until I heard from Zheng himself that I put the pieces together: you're his daughter, aren't you?"

"I…I…," Min Khan stammered.

"You willing allowed yourself to be taken in by Zucco against your father's wishes. You knew Zucco had an…affection for your type, so it would have been easy to chum up to him. Once Zucco started spilling all of his secrets to you, it was only a matter of time before you made your move."

"I…I…" Min Khan still stammered, backing away until her back hit the barrier.

"You were the one that told Zucco about the jade dragon statue and told him about how much Zhang wanted it – stealing it right out from under Zheng's nose was incentive enough for him to bid on it. Once Zucco had the statue, you walked up to him and stabbed him with your father's knife and then stole the statue before making the calling. You were hoping to use the knife to incriminate your father so that you would be able to skip town unnoticed and cut out any loose ends."

"This is madness," Min Khan sputtered sporadically. "I'm going home!"

The little Asian girl started to walk around me, but my quick reflexes managed to snatch her handbag before she could get too far. Realizing what happened, Min Khan spun around and tried to take the bag bag, but I had already opened the case. Just as I expected, an exquisite dragon statue made from fine jade was lying inside. I looked up at Min khan; she was glaring at me.

"You're going away for a long time for this, Miss Khan." I said to her.

"I think not," she spat venomously.

Quick as a flash, the young Asian whipped her hands in her coat pocket and pulled out a Caliber .45, M1911 pistol, the barrel pressed against my forehead. The moment the weapon was out, the people flew into a panic and started stampeding towards the exits until Min Khan and I were the only ones left. What a bunch of pansies.

"I made a mistake in underestimating you, Detective Gray," said Min Khan coldly. "I had thought you were just another small-minded pig that I could just throw onto my father and walk away. The way you were able to piece all the clues together is a testament to your intelligence. Had the situation been different, I would commend you."

"You realize you're not going to get away with this," I said, unafraid of the potential bullet passing through my skull.

"Wrong, detective," said Min Khan, pulling back the hammer. "I already have."

My eyes narrowed on Min Khan as her finger inched over the trigger. I only had one shot if I was going to turn this around. Once she started to pull, there will be a split second where her guard will relax and I can knock the gun out of her hand and promptly arrest her. Min Khan was just about to fire when things got…strange….

All of a sudden, a milky white hole rippled into existence behind Min Khan and a hand threw out, the fingers completely wrapping around the Asian girl's head. Min Khan screamed as she was lifted off the ground; her gun clattered on the ground nearly my feet. I could not hold back the shock look on my face as the rest of the body followed the arm. The man who stood in front of me looked old enough to be my grandpa, but his muscles were bigger than most bodybuilders. And then there was the weird stuff leeching off his chest; are those machines.

Min Khan's screamed echoed across the train station until it looked like the old timer grew tired of listening to her and tightened his grip. Blood exploded through his fingers and dripped on the platform. He threw Min Khan's onto the track just as another train was starting to pull in. Poor dame.

"Look at you," said the muscular old man. "Such a depressing creature. It's almost not worth taking your Black Star."

I could feel it without even knowing it – this guy was going to kill me in an instant. Shaking, I bent down and grabbed the gun that Min Khan had dropped, aiming it at the man's forehead. The old timer didn't falter; he looked like he was close to laughing. My hands were shaking harder than before.

"Back off!" I shouted, very scared right now. "Don't make me use this!"

"You wouldn't be the first to point a gun at me," said the old man. "But it didn't work out for them either. Come, let's not waste any time. Surrender your Black Star to me."

I had no f-ing idea what the old man was talking about. What the hell is a Black Star is something I wanted to ask, but my voice wasn't working properly. As he reached his hand out to me, I was screaming for my body to pull the trigger, but my nerves wouldn't respond. His hand was only an inch from my face when things got strange…again.

Another white hole ripped into existence and both me and the old timer looked over curiously. Before we knew what happened, a dark-haired pigtailed dame in a coat, bikini, and shorts was flying out and kicking the old man in the face. The kick wasn't enough to actually hurt him, but it did surprise him enough that he stumbled away a couple feet. The dame landed next to me, wearing a smug look on her face.

"We have got to stop meeting like this, SAHA," said the bikini dame.

"You interfere again, Stella," said SAHA, glaring at her.

"Yeah, I interfere again," Stella told SAHA before turning to me. "You might want to take a deep breath. This is going to feel funny."

"Who the hell are – " I started, but couldn't finish as the dame called Stella pulled me through the hole in the air and everything faded around me. The last thing I heard was SAHA's furious shouts fading further and further away.

* * *

 **World – 4263(Gameverse)**

My head stops spinning; the feeling of nausea begins to subside. I begin to notice things were different than they were a few seconds ago. For starters, everything was in color instead of the usual black and white – I nearly had a seizure just looking at everything. The second thing I noticed was that I wasn't at the train station anymore. It more like an abandoned building that had been converted into a laboratory for some mad scientist types, like in the picture shows.

The girl standing next to me, Stella I recall her name being, was humming to herself as if proud of what she had accomplished.

"Where am I?" I asked immediately. "What happened?"

"This is dimension-4263: my universe," said Stella, confusing the hell out of me. "I don't expect you to understand it right away, but I had to take you out of your universe so that you could be safe. That guy you saw back there, SAHA, is part of a group called the Apostles. I don't know why, but they're going around the multiverse destroying entire universes by taking these things called Black Stars. You're a Black Star, so that's why he was after you."

"You're right, I don't understand any of it," I told her. "But if what you're sayin' is true, then my whole world could be destroyed. And even though it's a pile of shit, it's still my world. So…any idea on how to deal with these…Apostle characters?"

"Not yet," said Stella. "But that why we decided to get together and find out."

Following the direction of Stella's gaze, I looked to the other end of the mad scientist lab and realized we weren't the only people there. There was one girl who looked exactly like me, except without my sunny disposition **(Nana Gray – 4263/Gameverse).** A tan-skinned girl that looked like one of those Arabian belly dancers **(Isra – 5466/Shantaeverse)**. A red-colored woman with demon horns coming out of her head **(Black Gold Saw – 6286/Animeverse).** A shady-looking character in a black cloak and hood checking the hidden blades under her sleeves **(Noctis – 1022/Assassinverse)**. And a pint-sized runt with black tentacle things hanging from her head, fiddling around with what looked like a squirt gun **(Inka – 1765/Splatoonverse)**

Look around at this collection of weirdos, freaks, and other things I couldn't explain – yeah, I'm looking at you horn girl – all I could say was:

"Why the hell did I get out of bed this mornin'?"


	4. Between Morality and Necessity

Black Rock Shooter © Huke  
All Characters © Respective Owners.

* * *

 **Record Three: Between Morality and Necessity**

 **World – 8766 (Tronverse)**

Flying through the neon street of Tron City on her Light Cycle, zipping through the swarms of scattering programs, RISC looked back for a brief moment. The monster was still chasing her from the rooftops, no doubt following the florescent blue glow of her Light Suit. RISC cursed under her breath and commanded the Light Cycle to move faster.

She turned right at the end of the road and the road out of Tron City spread out in front of her. If she could make it out into the open Grid, she'd have a better chance of out running him, possibly even losing him for good. But it appeared that monster was thinking the same thing. As she darted down the road, one of the hexagonal towers snapped in half, toppling over into the street below to cut her off. RISC hit the brakes, swerving dangerously, but managed to stop short of the tower crushing her underneath.

RISC cursed again. She'd need to find another way out of the city. The program turned her cycle around, but before she could set off on her next route, a something large dropped from the skyline and smashed her Light Cycle, reducing it to a mess of digital cubes. RISC was thrown off, tumbling awkwardly across the hard light road; the monster towered over her with a critical eye. RISC's helmet melted back into her Light Suit, let her short, neon-blue hair fly free, and took a kneeling position, glaring back at him.

"This chase has gone on long enough," said SAHA impatiently. "Make this easy and forfeit."

"I didn't give in when CLU was running things," said RISC, standing and unclipping her Identity Disc. "And I'm not about to do it for you."

RISC pulled back and threw her Identity Disc as hard as she could. SAHA caught it effortlessly between his fingers; RISC gapped incredulously. The leader of the Apostles tossed the disc aside like discarded trash. In one step, SAHA crossed the distance between himself and RISC, bringing his fist around to slam into the program's abdomen. RISC was thrown through the air and smashed through the data wall of the nearby tower; the programs inside clambered towards the exit.

RISC turned on her side, holding an open data wound on her chest, leering at SAHA as the Apostle stepped through the hole in the wall.

"There's no point in struggling for much longer," said SAHA with a tone of certainty. "Surrender yourself before we cause any more unnecessary damage."

"You've never been to the Grid before, have you?" said RISC, reaching into the digital space of her suit. "The whole system is already broken!"

The defiant program pulled out a silver ball with neon-blue light strips, tossing the weapon at SAHA. The leading Apostle caught the sphere with as much ease as he did her Identity Disc.

"A last desperate attempt at salvation," said SAHA in a bored tone. "I commend you for your willingness to survive, but you must have realized by now that – "

 _ **BOOM!**_

The digital bomb exploded directly in SAHA's face with enough force to derez the entire back side of the tower room, showering the streets in data particles. Normally the leader of the Apostles would have taken the explosion without faltering, but something was different. SAHA could feel the skin of his face rising to temperatures that were painful to him, feeling something warm licking against every cell. It burned him. The weapon burned him.

SAHA howled like a wounded animal, holding the burned portion of his face while dropping to his knees. At the same time, RISC pulled herself up to her feet using a table for assistance, still holding the wound but smirking nonetheless. When SAHA pulled his hands away, RISC got a good look at the damage: the entire left half was raw-red and blisters were popping painfully alongside it.

"That was….that was…" SAHA gasped.

"A bomb made from star energy," said RISC. "I heard people like you aren't very fond of it."

"But that's impossible," said SAHA. "Star energy is unique to only the Apostles and my Master. How could you – a computer program – obtain it?"

"I didn't make it myself to be honest," said RISC. "A group of Users came to me several hours ago and warned me you would be coming. The bomb wasn't meant to kill you, in case you were wondering. It was just to weaken you enough so that we could spring our trap. Which should start about…NOW!"

At the moment she shouted the order, a milky-white portal rippled into existence on the ceiling. SAHA, with his one good eye, tilted his head back to see, and stared with evident surprise as seven Black Stars dropped into the room.

Inka was the first to get a shot in on SAHA; she splattered his face with black paint, effectively blinding him. When the Apostle started to stand and rub his face clean, Stella and Mercy took a shot each at his ankles, crippling him back to his hands and knees. Black Gold Saw and Noctis followed up, stabbing both of SAHA's hands into the ground with their blades to keep him from getting back up. Isra telepathically called the broken data bits together and molded them together into a chain, commanding it to slither towards the Apostle and bind him from head to toe.

SAHA grimaced. He was still blind by the paint, but he could still sense that there were eight Black Stars surrounding him. He could easily break out of these bindings and kill them all; the other Apostles would certainly be impressed by the number he collected in a short time. But before the man could muscle his way out, Nana casually walked up to SAHA and slapped a small silver disc on his back. The disc beeped to life and SAHA cried out as a steady flow of star energy began pumping through his nervous system.

"Gray Child," SAHA grunted painfully. "I should have known it was you that planned this dishonorable ambush. It appears that what SZZU said was true: the Black Stars are trying to seek strength in numbers."

"I could care less about honor when it comes to survival," said Nana. "I imagine the real reason you're ill-tempered at the moment is because you didn't think anyone would know about the Apostle's weakness to star energy. It's not surprising since it hardly exists outside of our own dimension. It's the reason why White Rock Shooter – a person who could manipulate star energy – was able to control the Apostles. It's also the reason Stella was able to defeat you in the past, even if she did so unconsciously; because she is made from White Rock Shooter's DNA. Doctor Gibson knew that when he created her."

"Always so clever," SAHA mumbled. "I can see why the Master took a liking to you in her final days. You have your mother's drive, but you have your father's intelligence."

"I am nothing like White Rock Shooter," said Nana firmly, her tone becoming freezing cold. "I am Wyler Gibson's daughter and no one else."

"So you say," said SAHA with a small chuckle.

"It sounds like she might have some family issues to work out," said RISC.

"It's a lot more complicated that you might think," said Stella awkwardly. "There…well, it'll take a while to explain the whole thing – "

"I don't care about your personal matters," said Black Gold Saw, glaring at them. "We need to kill this monster now before he gets loose, because we know it's bound to happen sooner or later."

"Wait, did you say 'kill'?" said Isra, stunned.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on now," said Inka, raising her tentacles. "I don't know how things work in your worlds, but I'm not okay with killing somebody, even if he is a jerkface."

"Are you all complete idiots?" said Noctis harshly. "This man has killed dozens of us already, and that's not counting the billions of lives that were lost when he destroyed their worlds. If we don't kill him now, we risk billions more dying too."

"We're not going to kill him," said Nana with a tone of finality. "Not because I don't want to – and believe me, I really want to – but the fact remains is that we aren't sure if killing him is possible. As I said before, SAHA already died once in the past and yet here we are. We're going to interrogate him until he has answered our questions."

Nana reached out for the disc on SAHA's back and turned. The disc released a second pulse of star energy through her nervous system, twice as powerful as the one before it. SAHA grimaced, but he refused to give Nana the satisfaction of knowing that he was in pain. Meanwhile, Stella looked at her sister's back with a worried expression. This seemed less like interrogation and more like torture, Stella thought, but she opted to keep her opinion to herself.

"Start talking, SAHA," Nana demanded. "I know you died eight months ago when you submitted yourself to being nebladed by White Rock Shooter. How are you still alive after that? Your essence should have been drained."

"We have SZZU to thank for that," said SAHA. "As you recall, there were originally fifteen surviving under our Master in the Apostles – you yourself oversaw the destruction of eight of them, Gray Child. After realizing our own mortality, SZZU constructed a method to resurrect ourselves even after death. I cannot explain how it works, nor will I reveal its location."

"What is your mission?" asked Nana. "Why are you going around destroying worlds? Just what are these Black Stars?"

"You chased me all the way out here without knowing what the Black Stars are," said SAHA as something akin to a chuckle left his lips. "It seems I overestimated your intelligence, Gray Child. If you haven't learned the true meaning of the Black Stars by the time you found me, you stand little chance when you face the other six."

"There are six of them?" said Mercy, gapping at Nana. "You didn't tell us there were more? We were barely strong enough to stop _one_!"

"Yes, but SAHA is the strongest of the Apostles; he's their leader," said Nana strongly. "If we can defeat him, we can certainly hold our own against the rest. And with my star energy technology, we now have an edge over them."

"Yes, your star energy technology," said SAHA lowly. "Indeed, your weapons will prove every bit as effective against them as it did me. Or at least...it would have eight months ago."

It happened faster than any of them could have imagined. One second, SAHA was on his hands and knees looking ready to beg for mercy, the next he is towering over the collection of Black Stars with a concentrated look. He easily broke his bindings and pried the blades out of his hands. He reached over his shoulder until his hand touched the star energy disc, crushing the device in his vice grip. Nana was so stunned by the outcome that she made no notion of moving as SAHA's fist started flying towards her face. Luckily, Stella pulled her by the back of her shirt in the nick of time.

"I told you he was bound to break loose!" screamed Black Gold Saw. "Don't just stand around! Hit him with everything you have!"

"But that's impossible," said Nana, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Doctor Gibson's research was flawless."

"Indeed, the Apostles are vulnerable to star energy," said SAHA. "But the difference between the Master and your gadget is that the Master was far stronger. The most your device could do was temporarily stun me."

"Stop gawkin' and start pumpin' 'im full o' lead!" shouted Mercy, taking six shots in SAHA's back; the bounced harmlessly off his skin.

"Are you that foolish," said SAHA, grimacing. "Without star energy, any hope you had of defeating me has vanished."

"Don't listen to him!" Black Gold Saw snarled, stabbing SAHA in the shoulder with her King Saw. "He's still weak – "

"Weak, you say?" SAHA interrupted.

The leader of the Apostles backhanded Black Gold Saw off of him; the King Saw was still embedded in his shoulder. Looking around, he saw the other seven Black Stars making a charge at him. Leering at them all, SAHA raised his fist above his head and brought it down to the floor. When the punch connected, a massive crater took shape underneath his feet, stretching to every end of the room. The Black Stars fell into the newly formed hole, unwillingly sliding towards the Apostle. SAHA slammed his fist down again and spires of data erupted from the ground, striking each Black Star in the back.

The eight dimensional warriors hit the ground one-by-one, each showing different expressions of discomfort. Stella was the first to shift onto her side, wincing at the new pain in her face, and glared at SAHA. The Apostle leader grabbed the King Saw still piercing his shoulder and ripped it off, betraying no emotion as his white blood splattered on the dark digital floor.

"Weak is not a word to describe me, horned one," said SAHA menacingly. "It was simply curiosity that allowed you to strike me. I wished to see what you had to say, what you wished to do. But I heard enough already. Haven't you realized it already? I'm not the same man Stella slayed eight months ago. In the time we have been separated, I have only grown more powerful. Too powerful for you to defeat."

Stella heard her sister scream in a fit of fury that she had not heard in many months as Nana Gray lunged at the Apostle with her longsword. Because of her flaw as a cloned soldier, Stella had always known that Nana struggled on the border between sanity and insanity. Take a guess which one was in charge now.

SAHA stared at the gray clone, looking somewhat surprised by the expression of lunacy present in her bulging gold eyes. This provided Nana with the opportunity to stab the Apostle in the chest, putting her entire weight behind the sword so that it ripped out his back. SAHA stumbled and fell backward onto the floor. Nana, still shrieking like a madwoman, stood up over the Apostle and pulled her longsword out of SAHA's chest, only to stab in a second time. She pulled out again and stabbed him a third time. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. Then a Sixth.

The other Black Stars stared at their unofficial leader, many of them open-mouthed in shock; Black Gold Saw and Noctis stared with blank expressions; Inka covered her eyes with her tentacles. Stella couldn't watch this anymore; she couldn't let her sister's mental state deteriorate any further. Stella dashed over to the fight and grabbed Nana around the waist from behind; the gray clone screamed louder and started thrashing around madly. It took some doing, but Stella quickly managed to spin her sister around and then slapped Nana across the face before she could react. Nana became still.

"Snap out of it, Nana!" yelled Stella. "You did it; you got him! Now just – calm – down!"

Nana blinked as if just now noticing Stella and said: "I snapped again, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did," said Noctis, sounding almost approving. "But at least you finally got the son of a bitch."

"Celebrating too early, aren't you?"

Stella groaned inwardly as they turned in unison towards SAHA, already knowing what to expect. Even as white transparent blood poured ceaselessly through the holes in his chest, SAHA sat cross-legged on the floor with his head resting on his chin as if bored.

"You've got to be freaking kidding me!" said Mercy. "How could this get any worse – ARG!"

Stella spun around as Mercy hit the floor and her crimson blood started coloring the dark textures. Isra was already at her side when she noticed something stabbed into her shoulders – they look like green-tipped arrows. The group heard another scream and turned around just in time to see RISC drop with a large data wound crossing the entirety of her back. It didn't take long to figure out the responsible party when a milky-white portal rippled into existence on the wall and two people – a man and a woman – stepped out.

"You two," said SAHA glaring at the couple.

The man – LLWO, Stella remembered – had a dark complexion like SAHA and shocking white hair with a single black bolt running down the right side. Stella noticed on the only part of his abdomen not covered in armor was a jagged 'X'-shaped scar; a result of their last fight perhaps? His mechanized bow was still smoking and retrieved another set of specialized ammunition from the pouches of his pants, taking careful aim on the Black Stars.

And then there was MEFE, the first Apostle Stella had killed in the war. As opposed to the men, her skin was white and creamy for someone who murdered people for a living, her light purple hair glistening in the neon lights of the Grid. She still dressed like a sexy witch – her cleavage was pretty much hanging out for the whole world to see. But the most her eyes fell on Stella, he sweet expression turned into pure rage, slamming her massive axe on the ground in emphasis.

"You bitch!" shouted MEFE. "You bitch! How are you still alive? Ooh, I'm gonna mess you up, you motherf –"

"MEFE, LLWO, I did not ask you to come here," SAHA said in a tone of disapproval.

"Hmph, like we listen to what you have to say," said MEFE with her nose turned up to him. When SAHA glared at her, she pressed herself up to LLWO, tracing shapes on his chest. "Honestly, sweetie, can you believe rude SAHA is being? It's almost like he doesn't want us here."

"I can't imagine why anyone would not wish to be in your company, my love," said LLWO responded affectionately.

"Indulge your nauseating affections elsewhere, children," SAHA commanded, standing up. "I found these Black Stars. They are mine to take."

"Don't be that way, SAHA," said MEFE, finally unlatching herself from her lover. She crossed the room until she stood over RISC, raising her axe above her head. "After all, there are plenty to go around."

The Apostle woman brought down her axe and slice through RISC's shoulder. The program howled as his limb was tossed aside and dissolved into a pile of scattered data cubes. MEFE raised her axe again with a savage grin, relishing the look of panic on the program's face, when her vision was suddenly lost in a splatter of black paint. LLWO watch his lover shriek and rub off the paint that marred her beautiful face and leered at the attacker.

Inka was running around the outside of the edge of the room so as to not fall in the pit again and shot another paint bullet at LLWO. The archery slapped the colored ammunition away with his bow and aimed at the squid kid, already predicting where her next move would be. Just as he was about to take the shot, the familiar volley of Stella's rock cannon railed him from the side, throwing him into his lover and sending them both falling into SAHA's pit. The leader of the Apostles smirked at their humiliation.

"We need to get out of here!" Stella shouted to the rest. "The plan was only to trap one of them and take them out with Nana's star energy devices! Now the devices don't work and we're up against three Apostles! We need to retreat back to home base!"

"And how do you intend to do that?" said Noctis. "They'll kill us before we even have a chance to get through the portal."

"It's true; we can't fight them without killing ourselves," said Nana. "But where everyone sees this as a disadvantage, I see this as an opportunity. Isra, I need you for a moment – " she added to the half-genie.

Down in SAHA's pit, the Apostle leader looked close to chuckling when MEFE manages to wipe the rest of the paint from her face and turns on LLWO, slapping the man across the back of the head.

"Watch where you're going, you idiot!" shouted MEFE. "You could have broken my neck!"

"Even if I had, you still would have – " LLWO started.

"Are you saying it would have been okay if I had just died?" said MEFE shrilly. "You would have just let me – your _wife_ – fall to my death and act like nothing happened?"

"No, that's not what I – " LLWO stammered.

"Could you leave your petty squabbles for later," said SAHA calmly. "In case you have noticed, the Black Stars are getting away."

"No, they won't," said LLWO seriously, standing up and facing their retreating prey. "I'll kill them where they stand."

The archer reloaded the ammunition of his mechanized bow and aimed at the targets through the gap in the limbs. LLWO's finger was already on the trigger when Isra suddenly turned her head back at the Apostles; her eyes glowing a vibrant blue. The cluster of data bits that were once RISC's arm floated off the ground, spinning wildly until they reformed themselves into compressed black ball. The half-genie tilted her head sideways and the sphere zoomed through the air and smacked against LLWO's arm just as he pulled. The shots that were intended for the Black Stars were quickly turned on his comrades; SAHA took another blow to the chest while purple blood splattered from MEFE's neck.

"LLWO, you dumbass!" MEFE howled, holding a hand over the open wound. "I knew it! You were trying to kill me!"

"N-no, I swear!" LLWO sputtered. "I wasn't trying to – "

"I've had enough of your pointless bickering!" yelled SAHA impatiently, backhanding LLWO across the face. "Leave now, or I will return you to SZZU in pieces!"

Don't you touch my husband!" MEFE yelled furiously, jumping onto SAHA's back.

It had seemed that Nana's plan had worked. Playing off of MEFE's temperamental personality that had rising up from meeting Stella again, it wasn't difficult to set the Apostles against each other. While SAHA tried to rip the maniacal witch clinging to his back like a deranged monkey, LLWO tried to rationally calm the pair down; MEFE kicked him in the face for that.

"That escalated quickly," Isra commented.

"As I planned," said Nana as she summoned another milky-white portal to the wall nearest them. "Now hurry, through the portal before they get their wits about them."

"W-wait…," said RISC weakly, looking close to fainting. "We…we can't just leave them…. They'll destroy…the Grid."

"No. They're only interested in the Black Stars," Nana told her as their group fled one after another. "Once we leave, they'll have no reason to stay here any longer. Your world will be safe….I just wish I could say the same for us."

The Nana stepped through the portal, leaving Stella the only one left behind. Before she could follow her team, she looked back at the Apostles as SAHA finally threw off MEFE, only to have LLWO tackle him to the ground. A feeling of dread welled up in Stella's chest. Last time she had fought the Apostles, she was strong enough to defeat them on her own. But something happened in the last eight months; something changed them not only physically, but mentally as well.

These people…they weren't the Apostles…they were something else entirely. And as Stella stepped through the rippled in reality and watched the gateway close behind her, she felt something she had not known for a long time: fear.

* * *

 **World-4263(Gameverse)**

The atmosphere was solemn in Nana's lab; rather, it was downright depressing. It hadn't evcen been an hour since the collection of Black Stars had been forced to run away by the combined might of three Apostles. No one dared say anything, least they trigger a violent reaction from their comrades.

Noctis leaned against the wall, glaring at the floor with such intensity as if trying to burn a hole through it. Isra was a short distance away from her, sitting cross legging on one of the workbenches with her head in her hands, looking downcast. Having nothing else to do, Mercy leaned back in a chair with her feet propped on a table, her fedora lowered over her eyes. Black Gold Saw stood separated with her back turned to the group, staring at the deactivated portal with an avid fascination that no one else could understand. And Inka devolved into a black squid on the floor – no one really knew what she was thinking.

But while the others were busy sulking over their defeat, Nana instantly threw herself into more work; it was the only thing that would keep her sane after her breakdown during the fight. She decided it would be best to repair RISC's arm since she would be relatively useless without it. Now Nana was in no way brilliant enough to understand the complicated mechanics behind compiling and repairing data into a physical manifestation, but RISC knew everything about her own coding and guided her through it.

"And…done," said Nana, making the final necessary adjustment to the Identity Disc before replacing it on RISC's back. "Are you sure this will work."

"Yes," answered RISC. "I can feel my data patching itself now. It should be roughly an hour before the full repairs are made."

Noctis looked up from his hood at that moment, glaring at the two. The young assassin gritted her teeth and, in a fit of anger, kicked one of the workbenches and sent several of Nana's devices scattering on the floor; Inka jumped at the noise and landed on Isra's head; the half-genie was not amused.

"Hey, watch it!" shouted Nana irritably. "That equipment is very delicate! What if you break something?"

"What does it matter?" Noctis yelled, pounding her fist into the wall. "Are you all forgetting what just happened? We just got our asses handed to us; we were forced to run away like dogs with our tails between our legs!"

"One failure does not give you the right to destroy my laboratory," said Nana, glaring at her back.

"This 'one failure' just proved that we are no match for them," said Black Gold Saw monotonously. "Not only did Gray's device failed to stop one Apostle, but we have also learned that there are seven of those monster in total – something our 'leader' failed to inform of beforehand. It's time to face facts: we've lost."

"I wouldn't call it a total loss," said Nana blandly. "The star energy device may have failed this time, but that just means I need to improve them in order to properly incapacitate the Apostles. MEFE and LLWO's arrival also confirmed another theory: the Apostles have a way of tracking Black Stars. If I can reconfigure my star energy technology, I could essentially craft devices that can shield us from their detection."

"Hey, I was wondering," said Isra. "If the Apostles can track us anywhere, why haven't they followed us here?"

"That is a good question," said Nana, humming thoughtfully. "Maybe it's because they were killed in this dimension that they fear to return to it."

"Not to interrupt or anything," said Inka, suddenly looking around the room. "But has anyone seen where Stella went?"

"I think she locked herself in her room," said Mercy, poking an eye from under her fedora. "She took that music playing thingamajig with her; I don't think she's going to come out any time soon."

"This battle was an emotional upheaval for Stella," said Nana. "So lost so many loved ones to the Apostles in the past…including a man she was particularly close with. Seeing MEFE and LLWO no doubt confirmed her greatest fear that all of the Apostles have indeed returned, despite trying to deny it."

"Well, she's going to have to get her act together," said Noctis harshly. "Because as it stands, she's the only one with any experience in killing these monsters."

"She'll be ready next time, don't you worry," said Nana firmly. She walked into the center of the laboratory, turning to address each of them. "All right, now listen up. This may not have been the victory that we were hoping for, but the important part is that we survived to fight again another day. We have more knowledge on the situation that we did before and that can only make us stronger. RISC" – she turned to the program – "your unique physiology should allow you to gather data from any computer. There are some old City Eater databank on sublevel two – see I you can find any information on the Apostles as much as you can."

"I can try," said RISC.

"Isra, Mercy, I set up a monitoring station in the east wing," Nana continued. "I want you to track the Apostle's movements through the multiverse. Find out which worlds they visit frequently. More than likely, that's where their base of operations is."

"Hitting them on their home turf," said Mercy, smirking. "I like your thinkin'."

"Inka, there's a UEF weapons storage on the second floor," said Nana. "See if you can modify them to use star energy. They might not be strong enough to kill the Apostles, but they can at least stun them."

"Rodger dodger," said Inka with a salute.

"Gold Saw, Noctis, stay here for a moment," said Nana. "I need your help to deal with an…urgent problem."

The last two called turned towards Nana, exchanging knowing looks with one another. Once everyone had been given their assignments, all of them walked out of the laboratory and divided towards their specified destinations. The gray clone watched the open doorway for a while, waiting until she could no longer hear their distant footsteps, and turned to Noctis and Black Gold Saw. Both of them were staring at her expectantly.

"I wanted to talk to you both in private without the others listening," said Nana softly. "During my…episode earlier today, I had a moment of clarity."

"Was that before or after you turned raving psycho?" said Noctis harshly.

"The point being, I realized something from it," Nana continued unhindered. "When I turned 'raving pshycho', as you so eloquently put it, I threw off all of my inhibitions – I was willing to do anything I could to hurt him – and I was rewarded for it. I had caught SAHA unawares, I had him at my mercy, but then Stella pulled me away before I had a chance to finish him. Then when MEFE and LLWO arrived, everyone was more focused on recovering our injured allies than pressing the attack when the Apostles were distracted."

"What are you getting at?" asked Black Gold Saw.

"I'm saying, we can't afford to be reserved any longer," said Nana coldly. "We are facing genocide, and holding back will only get us killed. From now on, we must be willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the destruction of the Apostles, even if it means making…unethical choices concerning to wellbeing our of comrades."

"Unethical…," Noctis repeated slowly. "Wait…you mean sacrificing our allies, don't you?"

"The Apostles clearly have no fear of killing each at the expense of victory," said Nana. "We must be willing to do the same. The others may not agree to our methods, but at this point, it is necessary to throw off our morals for the sake of the greater good. Even if a few worlds die in the process, as long as we can kill the Apostles, we'll be saving the whole of the multiverse. So…what is your decision?"

Black Gold Saw and Noctis said nothing for a long moment, sharing looking with one another in silent communication. They both knew it was morally wrong, to throw many Black Stars – people who placed their trust in them – to the Apostles for the tiny chance that they could deal a final blow. Many of their comrades would have been disgusted by the idea; Stella would have never forgiven her sister for even suggesting such an idea. But Black Gold Saw and Noctis…

"We're in," said Black Gold Saw coldly. "If we're going to survive this, we'll have to do whatever we have to. And anyone who tries to stop us…won't be around much longer..."

* * *

 **World-0001 (Threshold/Innocent Soulverse)**

The Threshold was in utter chaos. All throughout the castle fortress, Black Stars were running in and out of buildings in a panic, carrying with them many scrolls and other odd. The busiest location in the Black Star headquarters was the central tower where the Board of Governors (the six leaders of the Black Star Army) convened to discuss the current condition of the Threshold. Today, the chamber that was once reserved only for six Governors was now cluttered with Black Stars racing back and forth between the forest of podiums that had been newly erected, each one holding a small energy globe that displayed different information to be processed.

Hanging high above the heads of their underlings, the six Governors hovered around a single enormous globe that nearly took up the entire ceiling of the chamber. Within the massive sphere were billions upon billions of marble-sized dots and each one of them was connection by a spider web of thin black threads. But as the Governors continued to watch the globe with avid concentration, they began to notice several of these threads were being cut off and not long after the marble evaporate into a white mist.

"Dimension-1776 has been erased!" A Black Star reported.

"Dimension-8190 has disappeared as well!" another Black Star declared.

"Dimension-3310 is gone, sirs!" a third Black Star added.

"Damn it!" One of the governors shouted furiously. "This is just absurd. How can a handful of aliens cause so much devastation in only a few days? Do they not realize the consequences of attacking the Black Stars in their home worlds?"

"I would imagine they do, Anzba," said another Governor, "or else they would have ceased these hostilities long ago. I find it quite disturbing that these – Apostles, was it? – managed to procure a method of traveling between worlds. I had thought the pathways between had been sealed off centuries ago, after that Saint King woman nearly caused a calamity."

"I'm more concerned with the 'why' in this situation, Ouru," said Anzba. "Lady Ram, surely you must have some inkling as to why this disaster is occurring."

All five stony governors turned simultaneously towards the only semi-human among their council. Lady Ram was as beautiful as she was graceful; platinum blond hair flowing like a waterfall to her ankles, her pale face shielded by a thin vail, and her attire compared to that of royalty. The only oddity were the curled ram horns that topped her head, hence her name.

When being addressed by her fellow governors, Ram slowly opened her eyes, calmly taking in the scene before them. A frown marred her beautiful face as two more worlds were erased from the multiverse.

"I do have some theories as to what they may be planning," said Ram elegantly, "but I shudder to think that any of them would prove accurate. Rather than waste time discussing what their goals may be, I would suggest we take the chance to counter the situation."

He reached out to the globe with a single finger, touching the surface that rippled like water. One of the marbles glided from its position towards the tip of the horned woman's nail.

"I've noticed that the dimension-4263 have already begun to amass an army," said Ram. "They have the right idea, but they lack the means to gather enough forces in time to strike back against these Apostle characters. They don't understand the inner workings of the multiverse like we do."

"Are you suggesting that we build our own army of Black Stars," asked Anzba.

"It makes sense," said Ram. "We can send an envoy to travel through the dimensions, bringing as many Black Stars to the Threshold as possible. They will be safe here – our headquarters already houses over two millions Black Stars that have not matured enough to be bound to their own world. This is the safest place in the entire multiverse for them."

"And I assume you've already taken the liberty of selecting our envoy?" said Ouru.

"You assume correct, Ouru," said Ram, smiling softly. She then turned on her heels, pointing downwards at a random Black Star below. "You there! I have a task for you! I wish for you to send a message to Black Star 01451. Tell her that she is to drop all current assignments and report to central headquarters for immediate debriefing!"

"Yes, Lady Ram!" shouted the Black Star before running out of the chamber.

"If we want to stand a chance at facing these villains, we need to put our best foot forward," said Ram, speaking more to herself than to the governors. "I never thought I would live to see the day when someone would be foolish enough to attempt this. I hope you are up for the challenge…Rock."


	5. Standing Alone in a Crowded World

Black Rock Shooter © Huke  
All Characters © Respective Owners.

 **Warning: This chapter involves large use of swearing, derogatory language, and acts of bullying. If you do not want to read this, please skip to the line break in the chapter.**

 **Note: Forgiveness for taking so long to upload; I was in the process of a very long move and then, just as I was ready to get writing again, I end up getting really sick that I actually needed to go into surgery. So after spending a lot of time recovering from that, I'm finally ready to throw myself back into the game…er writing…or – YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!**

 **Now if you're done listening to my excuses, roll clip!**

* * *

 **Record Four: Standing Alone in a Crowded World**

 **World-1009 (Matagiverse)**

"… **and hoping for a speedy recovery,** " said the annoying news anchor; her voice always grated her nerves in ways she couldn't imagine. " **In other news, footage from the lasted Daemon attack last night was filmed by two local teenagers who happened to be passing by at the time. Here's the footage now -** "

The hella annoying newscaster was quickly replaced by a grainy video of what appeared to be a storage warehouse for construction supplies. The video was very poor quality because it was taken in the middle of the night with only the light of the full moon to illuminate the scene. It begged the question why two teenagers were hanging around the warehouse district in the middle of the night.

The video zoomed in closer towards the pile of steel girders and caught something large moving against the background. It looked like a giant mechanical wolf made from random scraps of metal with several large gears jutting from its body including the large bronze cog wrapped around its neck. The metal wolf's head was bowed over the girders; loud scraping sounds could barely be heard through the video's poor audio. It sounded like it was eating the beams.

" **As you can see, the quality of the video is poor but the Daemon is clearly visible,** " said the goddamn news woman; can someone shut her the #$% up already?

Suddenly, the metal wolf in the video whimper and was thrown aside as two miniature explosions set off against its side. The metal wolf scrambled to its paws, baring it crooked sheet metal teeth as a small girl dropped down from the roof, crunching the hood of a car beneath her feet.

The girl had short dark hair that blended perfectly in the night, but her bright purple eye (the one not covered by an eyepatch) shined through the darkness like a beacon. Though no one could really make out what she was wearing, everyone already knew her attire: a sailor uniform where black and white were the predominant theme from the long sleeved, white collar jacket, to the pleated skirt, to the knee-high boots to even the white armband with the black pentagram stitching. Anyone who had seen her before knew she was most likely wearing her headphones right now as well.

The metal wolf's growl was barely audible through the speakers as it crouched low to the ground, rearing itself up to pounce. The one-eyed girl stared with her typical bored expression as she pulled out her weapon: an unorthodox gun that also severed as a sword; its length was equal to the girl's height.

" **As shown by the video,** " said the newswoman, **"the girl everyone is referring to as Black Matagi also arrived on the scene not long after.** "

The metal wolf in the video jumped at the new girl, now known as Black Matagi, who pulled the large trigger of her gunblade and fired off two more rounds. Another set of mini explosions went off on the beast, causing it to flail awkwardly while still in midair. Black Matagi rolled underneath the wolf when it started falling on top of her last position, completely smashing the car beneath its weight. The Daemon scrambled to its feet again, but once it turned to her, Black Matagi stabbed her gunblade between the beast's eyes.

Neither of them moved for a full three seconds. Then the red in the Daemon's eyes faded and the metal that constructed its body collapsed into a heap of scrap. Black Matagi slowly lowered her blade, staring intensely at the wreckage that was once a giant, steel-eating wolf. The swordswoman turned and then the video paused, catching a perfect facial shot of the Black Matagi, whose blank expression was illuminated by the brilliant purple flame that flickered from her left eye.

" **And that was a video show from last night's events,** " said the newswoman, now replacing the video with herself. " **It's been six months since the disappearance of Tokyo's previous vigilante, Black Rock Shooter, and since Black Matagi appeared on the scene. While some are calling this new vigilante a hero much like Black Rock Shooter, the majority still feel that Black Matagi should be held responsible for her actions. This demand from accountability is in response to the incident six months ago when local middle school girl, Mato Kuori, was found dead at the scene of Black Matagi's first appearance. When asked on their opinion of Black Matagi's potential 'hero status', the Tokyo police had this to say:** "

"Black Rock Shooter was a criminal in her time," said the chief of police. "And this pale imitation is just another criminal as well. Worst of all, she is a criminal who thinks she can get away with murdering an innocent child. These 'vigilantes' need to be brought to justice!"

" **Though the Tokyo police have made great strides in catching the mysterious girl, they have had little success finding her. Police are suspecting that Black Matagi may be disguising herself to blend in natural with the population. If you have any information on Black Matagi's whereabouts, please contact your local authorities. In other news – "**

"Ungrateful assholes," said Reiko Ningai, shutting off her StarPad.

The young girl sighed in annoyance as she replaced the pad in her school bag, begrudgingly making her way towards campus, listening to the inane chatter of the inbred idiots she was forced to call her classmates. God, Mondays sucked hard. Being forced into a small room with a bunch of braindead teenagers listening to a stuffy old windbag who couldn't even teach himself; it was torture. Reiko could hardly believe that there was once a time when she actually looked forward to going to school. But that was before Mato –

Reiko stopped that train of thought; her hand clenching the front of her shirt. Mato…God, she missed her so much. If what the news report said was true, it had been six months since Mato had died in her arms; six months since she found out her best friend was Black Rock Shooter.

Everyone said that it was Black Matagi that had killed Mato, and in some ways they were right. On that night six months ago, Reiko had been captured by the Daemon and used as bait to draw out Black Rock Shooter – she could only assume they knew who Mato was if they had taken her. Black Rock Shooter had taken the bait and walked right into an ambush of a hundred Daemons. The battle had been fierce and, if Reiko was quite honest, the most epic thing she had ever seen. Black Rock Shooter won in the end, having slain all one hundred Daemons, but the injuries she sustained had been too much and she collapsed where she stood.

That was when the mask came off and Reiko found her best friend at her feet, lying battered and broken in a pool of her own blood. Reiko could never forget the feeling that had welled up in her chest; it was like someone had ripped out her lungs and crushed her windpipe. She couldn't breathe; she couldn't stop the stinging in her eyes. As she cradled her best friend in her arms, pleading for her not to die, Mato looked up to her and said:

" _This isn't over. The Daemon…they're still alive…they'll keep hurting people…and the Black Star is the only one that can stop them. Reiko…I know it's asking a lot…but I need you to trust me…I need you to finish the mission I started…. I need you to become the Black Star. It'll be tough…a lot of people will hate you for it…and I know you have no reason to accept…because you don't owe them anything. But whether they like it or not…they need you…they need us. So please, Reiko…before I go…let me go with peace of mind._ "

Reiko had wanted to yell at Mato, for lying to her, for risking her life for these ungrateful people, and for dying when she needed her most. But in the end, Reiko agreed, and with her final breath, Mato pressed her hand over Reiko's felt eye and transferred the power of the Black Star to her, transforming her into Black Matagi.

But of course, the police and their horrible timing just happened to show up at that very moment and misread the situation. Reiko – as Black Matagi – barely managed to escape when the police started shooting at her. The next day, her picture blew up all over local media and everyone knew that Mato Kuroi had been murdered, allegedly at her hands. #$%ing police and their #$%ing stupid conclusions because they're too lazy to get off their fat, #$%ing asses to do their jobs!

And in case it wasn't apparent, her anger management classes weren't working.

Reiko snapped out of her stupor when the warning bell went off across campus. It was a good thing she had already made it to her classroom before the tone went off; she didn't need to give the teachers another reason to hate her even more. Predictably, the moment she stepped into the room, all eyes were on her as they started whispering to one another, looking devilishly excited or snickering behind their hands. Some of them didn't even bother to lower their voices, likely wanting to be overheard.

"Hey, look, the #$%^ licker's back," said one of the annoying popular girls.

"She's must be pretty brave to show her ugly-ass face around here," said one of the equally disgusting friends.

"Or just stupid," said the third braindead bimbo in their clique. "I heard she's so retarded, the teachers are thinking of sending her back to preschool."

The trio of dumbasses laughed at their own joke; Reiko ignored them as usual and walked to her desk in the back of the class. Once she found her seat, she stopped just short of it a stared at it was her patented monotone expression. She can't say she was too surprised to see that her classmates had scratched graffiti into the wooden surface. This was becoming more of a weekly occurrence with maintenance having to replace the desk constantly. The familiar slurs of " _dyke_ ", " _lesbo", "faggot",_ and " _rug muncher_ " glared up at her along with a few words that you wouldn't think a middle school children would know about.

Once again, Reiko ignored the obvious attempt at bullying and took her seat, throwing her back on top to cover the graffiti and resting her head. The whole school knew of her sexual orientation – some bitch overheard her talking in the bathroom once and it spread like wildfire – but Reiko had never been ashamed of it. If anything, she was proud to know she didn't have anything in common with her tormenters, especially when it came to people she liked.

Mato never judged her; she accepted Reiko even after word of her preferences got out. She was always so sweet, thoughtful, and willing to help others at the expense of herself. It was probably the reason why she became Black Rock Shooter. It certainly was the reason why Reiko loved her.

In no time at all, the final bell rang and the students returned to their desks; one of her bullies threw a paper ball with several offensive slurs at her head before sitting down. Before Reiko could contemplate retaliating, the teacher walked into the room, looking at old and stuffy as he ever did. Though today, he was surprisingly joined by a young girl Reiko had never seen before wearing their school uniform. She was very pretty with her dark wavy hair that ran past her shoulders and even her eyeglasses made her look more mature than she really was.

The girl stood at the front of the class, gaining a sudden interest in her shoes. So she was shy, Reiko thought, that's kinda cute. The teacher wrote her name on the board, which looked really weird to her: kotori-asobi Yomi?

"Attention, class," said the old windbag. "Today, we will be receiving a new student. Please introduce yourself, miss…."

"Er…my name is…Takanashi Yomi," said the new girl. Wow, Reiko thought, I could not have been more wrong. "I just transferred from Okinawa. I know it's rather strange for me to transfer in during the school year, but I hope we can get along. I'll be in your care."

Reiko made a low scoffing sound; it'll be a cold day in Hell before anyone in this class learned to play nice. She could already see the Bimbo Squad already planning something behind the teacher's back.

"Thank you, Miss Takanashi," said the bald windbag. "Please take your seat. There's one next to Ningai in the back.

Reiko's body stiffened as her hand clenched into tight balls. There was a seat open directly to her left, but it had been unoccupied for the past six months. It had been Mato's desk. In the half-year that Mato had died, some people had been kind enough to leave flowers and other gifts of mourning on the desk after it had happened. But some, however, tried to deface it out of some sick pleasure. Reiko had fought tooth and nail and faced the threat of expulsion dozens of times to keep Mato's seat safe; it was all she had of her in this hell hole. And now this old fart was just handing it over to the new girl – she was not okay with this.

The new girl takes a seat in _Mato's_ desk as the teacher turned his back on them, going on another tangent that no one is paying attention to. She could practically feel the new girl's eyes on her and, rolling her eyes, looked over at her with her harshest glare. Takanashi was smiling at her, albeit weaker when Reiko was leering at her.

"What?" Reiko hissed.

"Er…nothing…," said Yomi hesitantly; Reiko scoffed again. "Um…my name's Yomi…."

"I know; you literally just said it a minute ago," said Reiko starkly.

"Er…right," Yomi muttered timidly. "Well, since we're going to be neighbors from now on, I hope we – "

"Let's just one thing straight, new girl," Reiko interrupted, her glare becoming more pronounced. "I don't care who the hell you are, where you came from, what your business is – quite frankly, I don't give a damn about you. We are never going to be friends, so don't even bother asking."

The new girl went very quiet after that, refocusing her attention to the blackboard but with an obvious glint of sadness in her eyes. Was it cruel? Yes. But Reiko had already opened herself up to one person and she ended up dying, leaving Reiko with a pain in her chest that never went away. She wasn't going to let it happen again.

The rest of the school day flew by, much to Reiko's relief, although this was considering she slept through most of it. It wasn't that she was lazy; it's just that she didn't see a reason to try any more. The new girl kept taking peeks at her when she thought Reiko wasn't looking, looking flustered whenever Reiko caught her staring. She obviously wanted to say something – probably to chastise her for sleeping during class – but Reiko's earlier statement was still fresh in her mind and he smartly kept her mouth shut. Reiko scoffed for the third time that day; the new girl was seriously starting to irritate her.

Thank god the bell rang for lunch. It gave her a good excuse to ditch the classroom and finally get some peace and quiet without having to listen to the Bimbo Squad chirp all day. She pulled out her lunch from her school bag and threw the bag over her shoulder to take with her – the last time she had made the mistake of leaving it behind, she found shreds of it littered all around campus. Unfortunately, she barely made it a few feet into the hall when –

"Ningai-san!"

Reiko withheld the desire to groan; the new girl just didn't get it. She turned on her heels to Yomi when she stepped out of the classroom, carrying her lunch in front her of her staring down at the floor like a shy little school girl. Reiko actually groaned this time. This girl was just falling straight into her stereotype.

"I thought I made myself clear," said Reiko rudely. "I'm not going to be friends with you, which also means that I don't want to eat lunch with you either. So back off before I actually have to hurt you."

"I don't think you would do that," said Yomi.

"You don't know a damn thing about me," Reiko snapped; Yomi flinched. So don't try playing the nice girl card and suddenly think I'm gonna open myself up to you and then we become best buddies. This isn't an anime; it's real life. There's no magical plot device that will suddenly make me chummy with you."

"But I – "Yomi stammered.

"What'll it take to get it through your #$%ing thick skull!" said Reiko impatiently. "I don't want to be friends with you!"

"Like anyone would want to be friends with you, dyke,"

Reiko lapped her hand on her face and let out a heavy, frustrated groan. Of course, to make her day worse, the new girl made her stick around long enough for the Bimbo Squad to catch up. Reiko didn't even try putting up a fight when one of the whores snatched up her lunch; all of them laughed like they had pulled off some epic prank. On the rare days that Reiko was unlucky to stick around long enough for her too be seen during lunch period, the Bimbo Squad always made a show to ruin it for her: dumping food shavings, dropping it in the toilet, or rearrange the contents with graphical detail. Reiko didn't have a whole lot of money for food, so it bothered her every time they wrecked her hard-earned meal.

Yomi looked very uncomfortably, probably realizing her mistake as she watched the Bimbo Squad taunt Reiko by holding her lunch box over her head out of her reach. Reiko wasn't trying to get her lunch back she didn't want to play their stupid little game. Yet, that didn't stop them from opening the bento and dumping the entire contents on Reiko's head. Everyone that lingered in the halls turned and laughed at her; white rice sprinkling her dark hair, ketchup and mustard splattering her uniform, and the small slab of meat she managed to scrounge up slapped her face before squelching on the floor.

Reiko kept her head low, trying to push back the feelings that were stirring in her chest. She could turn into Black Matagi right there. She could kill everyone in the hallway and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop her. But as much as she wanted to paint the walls crimson, she couldn't. Mato had trusted her with this power to help people, not hurt them. If she suddenly started using it on people she didn't like, then it meant Mato died for nothing.

But that still didn't stop the urge from rising….

"Leave her alone!" Yomi shouted, and Reiko was genuinely surprised when she stepped up, trying to wipe the rice and condiments off her. "What is wrong with you? You shouldn't just treat people like that! It's not right!"

"Aw, look at the cute little new girl," one of the whores said in a mocking baby voice. "Trying to save the poor wittle faggot."

"Don't say that!" said Yomi, glaring. "Don't ever say that word again!"

"What wrong with calling her faggot if it's accurate?" said the head bitch, laughing cruelly.

"What is wrong with you people?" said Yomi, mouth agape. "How can you be so mean to someone like this? I'm not going to pretend that I know Ningai-san well, but I know she hasn't done anything to deserve this kind of treatment."

"She's a lesbo freak, that's all the reason we need," said the head bitch. "She thinks she's so much better than everyone else because she hangs out by herself. Someone needs to teach her the social order around her. That Kuroi slut figured it out. You heard about Kuroi right? The girl that died half-a-year ago?"

"I heard of her, yes," said Yomi, but she wasn't paying too much attention to her. She was dabbing the ketchup with a moist towelette, but it wasn't working; it looked like it was going to stain. "What does she have to do anything?"

"She and the faggot were #$% buddies," said the head bitch. "Yeah, those sluts were always together. They say they were just friends, but everyone knew they were whoring around. But Kuroi finally smartened up. Everyone says that Black Matagi killed her, but we all know the bitch offed herself because she realized how much of a worthless shit she was. Can't say I'm gonna miss the sl – AHH!"

Everything went by in a blur. Faster than Yomi could blink, Reiko rushed past and tackled the head bitch to the floor, screaming in a bloodcurdling rage. She straddled the bully and slammed her fit fist across the bimbo's face, driving her knuckles against her jawline. She did the same thing with her left hand, successfully drawing out a spurt of blood from her lips. The third time she did it, a tooth clattered on the floor at Yomi's feet. Reiko then grabbed a clump of her hair and pulled up as hard as she could; the students who were watching the scene unfold wince as many follicles were ripped from their roots.

Even as Reiko continued to beat her bully into a bloody stain on the floor, no one moved to rescue her in fear that they would be next. Yomi unconsciously took several steps back, eyes wide in horror with her hands clamped over her mouth to mask her silent gasps. And Reiko – she couldn't stop herself even if she wanted to, and she really didn't want to. She could take all the crap they said about her, but no one ever – EVER – talks about Mato that way!

Reiko was finally pulled away when one of the teacher's saw the gathering crowd and pulled her back by her arms. Everyone stared in horror at her, breathing heavy as the rage emptied from her system, then stared down at her victim. The head bimbo was no longer pretty: her face was a swollen patchwork of blueish-purple bruises, her nose was horrendously crooked, and no one could ignore the glaring bald spot on the top of her head. When Reiko saw the bitch crying, she felt a twisted sense of satisfaction.

"Some call the nurse and have her come down here at once!" the teacher ordered, before turning on Reiko and grabbing her roughly by the arm. "As for you, Miss Ningai, this is the final straw! When we get to the principal's office, I will make sure that you are expelled."

"You know what, #$% you!" shouted Reiko furiously, prying her arm away. "That bitch treats me like crap daily and you assholes don't do anything to stop it! But whenever I fight back, I'm always the one in trouble! I'm not putting up with it anymore! I don't care if you do expel me, because I'm done!" she finished, taking off down the hall.

"Ningai-san!" Yomi called, but she had already disappeared around the corner.

* * *

Reiko ignored the indignant shouting of the faculty workers when she kicked the school doors open on her way out. She just didn't care anymore. From the very beginning, the whole world had been out to get her – both are Reiko Ningai and Black Matagi. She hated this world for being so cruel. She hated her parents for giving birth to her in this world. She hated the people who were cruel for the sake of being cruel….

She hated Mato for leaving her alone….

"This damn world isn't worth living in," Reiko mumbled to herself. "It's caused me nothing but pain and misery my whole life. And the one thing I ever cared about was taken away from me. I just wish…I just wish this goddamn world would disappear forever."

Reiko had not yet realized how close she was to getting her wish…

As she contemplated the many reasons why she hated the world and her many fantasies of destroying it, the blare of sirens ripped her away from her malevolent thoughts. She recognized the shrill alarms and the screeching of police tires; she had spent many nights running away from them. It sounded like they were headed towards the city. Humming in curiosity, Reiko opened her bag, whipped out her StarPad and quickly turned to the new channel:

" – **Live outside Nacomi Electronics where a Daemon has been spotted terrorizing midday shoppers. Police are arriving on the scene now, but have had no luck in entering the building. Reports are coming in that the Daemon – wait, what is that?** "

The background lit up in a spectacle of flashing lights before a crackling boom sounded through the pad; the screen was replaced by a wall of static.

"This could not have happened at a more perfect time," said Reiko, finally allowing herself to smile for the first time today. "Just when I was looking to hurt someone, they drop it in my lap."

Reiko replaced to StarPad in her bag and looked around the grounds. The campus was empty and no one was looking at her through the windows. Perfect.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and willed the fire that was lingering in her soul to the surface. The familiar purple flame ignited in her left eyes, then washed over the rest of her body, spreading momentary warmth around her. Gone was the hideous yellow school uniform and replaced by the clothes stained black with darkness; the light of her right eye vanished with the eyepatch's appearance; the familiar weight of her gunblade rested in her hand, making her feel powerful. Black Matagi had awakened.

The one-eyed Black Star turned in the direction of the siren wails and took off at a running start, leaping onto of the school's wall before bounding to the city rooftops.

As Black Matagi disappeared into the city, Yomi Takanashi stepped outside, mouth agape at what she had just seen.

* * *

The Tokyo Police formed a perimeter around Nacomi Electronics building; many of the officers were hiding behind the hoods of their cars with guns raised, a sweat dripping from their brow. A large crowd was, naturally forming on either end of the street; people LOVED hanging around places that could get them killed.

There was a surprisingly calm hush amid the large gathering; a quiet broken only by the crackling and hissing echoing through the shop's broken window. One of the officers flagged down his partner, nodded, and both of them slowly approached the store from the side as not to be seen. Everyone waited on baited breath as the pair edged closer to the window, their fingers on the triggers of their guns. The partner shared a look, silently confirming they were ready, and suddenly shot up to their feet aiming through the hole in the glass.

A wide bolt of electricity arced through the window; both officers screamed in terror as their upper bodies were burned black in seconds. There were screams in the crowd as their roasts corpses hit the street. A crackling screech rang through the window and several more bolts of electricity shot outside. Most of the shots harmlessly hit the ground and grounded out, some hit the squad cars and shocked a few of the officers, but one or two lucky shots made it into the crowd and scorched a couple of onlookers. No one wanted to hang around after that.

"This is Unit 134!" shouted the squad leader into his radio. "Officer down! I repeat, officer down! We're suffering heavy casualty, both police and civilian! We are pinned down and unable to move in on the Daemon! Requesting immediate back up!"

" **Affirmative 134,** " said dispatch. " **Sending out emergency call. ETA twenty minutes.** "

"We can't hold out for twenty minutes!" screamed the officer, ducking another bolt of electricity. "We need immediate back up! We need – "

 _ **THUD!**_

The officer jumped back from his car at the sound of pounding metal and the creaking of the axis. Everyone's attention was drawn to the noise and many stared in shock and awe at Black Matagi, standing on the roof of the squad car, her feet leaving a large indentation from where she landed. The Black Star of this universe glared with her one eye through the broken glass window, spying the snaps of lightning flying inside the store. One bolt strayed outside the window toward Black Matagi; she effortlessly swiped it away with her gunblade, sending it flying harmlessly towards the sky.

So stunned by her sudden appearance, it took the police a full minute to regain their senses. Every officer that had been aiming at the store turned their pistols on Black Matagi; the Black Star gave no indication that she noticed.

"Freeze!" shouted the unit leader. "Black Matagi, you are under arrest!"

Black Matagi could have said something; she could have told them that it wasn't her that had killed Mato, or that they were wasting their time thinking they could catch her. She could have laughed and said that if she wanted to, she could kill them all before they could blink. But Black Matagi doesn't say anything; her voice became silent the moment she accepted this role.

So ultimately ignoring the police, Black Matagi jumped down from the car and charged at the electronics store. The police started shooting at her back, but they were horrible shots; bullets were flying over her head and hitting the ground _away_ from her feet. The two shots that actually managed to hit were forcibly ejected from her body and her skin sewed itself shut via her healing factor. Once she had reached the shop window, Black Matagi jumped at the hole and smashed her way through the remainder of glass, landing in a crouch with her Gunblade pointed outward; she looked almost heroic.

She surveyed the shop and spotted the Daemon on the left hand side of the store near the wall of flat screen televisions. Its body structure looked similar to one of those lizard supervillains in American comic books that Reiko read once, but look at the Daemon was like looking into an x-ray. Its skin was completely transparent, making its skeleton visible inside what looked like a large quantity of blue fluid.

The Daemon had ripped one of the televisions off the wall, snapping in half to exposed the mess of wires and cables inside, when Black Matagi had smashed her way inside. The Daemon snapped its head in attention when it realized someone had broken into its area, and hissed furiously when it realized that it was the Black Star that had showed up. Before facing her, the Daemon closed its mouth over the exposed cords and suddenly a surge of electricity crackled through the monster's transparent body, lightning arcing around its bones and giving the blue fluid and florescent glow.

The Daemon threw the drained television aside and turned on Black Matagi, hissing wrathfully as it lunged forward on all fours. Black Matagi raised her gunblade to the Lightning Daemon and shot off hailstorm of bullets. The Black Star's only eyes widened in surprised when a barrier of electricity surrounded the monster, causing her ammunition to ricochet in every direction. Black Matagi quickly ducked behind a shelf of music players; the handheld devices were knocked off their perches one-by-one with yen-sized holes in them like they had been in a shooting gallery. One stray shot ripped through the edging of the shelf and tore a wide cut through her sleeve, drawing a line of blood in her deathly-dark skin. Thankfully, the wound didn't sit long before the skin sealed itself back up – one of the perks of being a Black Star.

A metallic crunching sound reached Black Matagi's ear and the Black Star snapped her head up – the Lightning Daemon stared at her hungrily on top of the shelf. The see-through monster stretched its jaws wide over the one-eyed vigilante's head, but Black Matagi spun around on her behind until she was facing the shell and kicked it hard with both feet. The shelf – and the Daemon – was sent crashing into the rest of the stock, toppling them over like large dominos and potentially breaking every product in the store. The Lightning Daemon howled with displeasure; its lower body was clamped between two shelves.

The Daemon grasped the top shelf and tried to pry it off, but them Black Matagi appeared and pressed her foot against the shelf to keep it in place. The Black Star pointed the tip of her gunblade at the Lightning Daemon's face, narrowing her single eye dangerous as she lifted the weapon over her head. Black Matagi swung the blade down on top of the monster, but just before the sword could connect, the Daemon's electric barrier stopped the weapon in mid-swing. A powerful surge of electricity flowed through the gunblade and up Black Matagi's arm; the Black Star gritted her teeth trying to hold back the pain ripping through every cell under her skin. And then, which a crackling hiss, the Daemon pushed outwards and sent the Black Star flying across the store.

Black Matagi slammed into the wall, leaving a large indentation from where her back connected, and slumped down behind the counter with a grimace. She could hear her gunblade cutting open the floor somewhere nearby; she had dropped it mid-flight.

Very shaken, Black Matagi grabbed the edge of the counter and pulled herself up, shooting the nastiest sneer she could at the Lightning Daemon. The see-through monster ripped away the shelving holding it down and stalked down the aisle on all fours like a predator stalking its pray – which it most likely was. The Daemon crouched low ready to pounce when –

 _ **BRIIIIIIIIIINNNNGGGGGG!**_

Black Matagi and the Lightning Daemon jumped with a start and stared at the ceiling. That was definitely the sound of a fire alarm going off, Black Matagi knew, and a few seconds later, the sprinkler system started dousing the store in a shower of water. Black Matagi didn't much care for being wet – her hair always went flat and made her even creepier than normal – but the Daemon _really_ did not like the water. Miniature electric explosions were flying across its body like fireworks and the monster flailed around howling in apparent pain. The liquid inside its transparent body, Black Matagi noticed, had lost its electrical current.

"Water conducts electricity, so it shorts out all electrical devices!" shouted a familiar voice from afar.

Black Matagi snapped her head, her one eye turning wide as a plate. That new girl from school, Yomi Takanashi, was hovering by the emergency exit of the store, leaning against the side while her right hand was holding down the fire alarm. If Black Matagi could speak, the first question would have been what she was doing here.

"Its power is temporarily disabled!" shouted Yomi urgently. "Quickly, before it gets back up!"

Deciding it was better to ask questions another time, Black Matagi nodded and bounded over the counter, making a run at her gunblade. Noticing that the Black Star was making a run for it, the Lightning Daemon, though still sparking painfully, crouched low and pounced on the one-eyed warrior. But the monster was too slow as Black Matagi reached her weapons and sword backwards in a wide arc, cleanly cutting the Daemon in half. The bisected pieces of the Daemon hit the ground, sparking only for a brief second before it completely died. And standing over the remains of the Lightning Daemon, Black Matagi leered at the corpse as a rich purple flame ignited over her eye.

Yomi pulled the lever up to its previous position; the sprinklers stopped and alarm bell stopped ringing. For a long moment, neither she nor Black Matagi uttered a word or made a move in each other's direction; an awkward silence built between them. It wasn't until Black Matagi finally turned her burning eye in her direction that Yomi was able to gather her courage and step closer to the Black Star. Then, when they were within arm's length of each other, Yomi stared up at the warrior, barely able to mutter a word that caused Black Matagi's eye to widen in shock….

"Ningai-san?"

"The area is secure!" shouted the police officers outside. Black Matagi cursed; she had forgotten about them. "Breach and secure! Move, move, move!"

The Tokyo Police slammed their way through the door and many of them hopped through the broken window, all of them with guns ready. They found the electronic store completely decimated – every product was either smashed or soaked – and the severed carcass of Daemon lied out open on the floor. Black Matagi, and her accomplice, was long gone.

* * *

Black Matagi dropped down from the rooftops into an alley way on the opposite side of town, carrying Yomi Takanashi under her arm like a luggage bag. She didn't know why she did it – it wasn't like she would have cared if the new girl had been carted off by the police – but the Black Star had acted impulsively and took her along before the cops could catch them. Black Matagi dropped Yomi on the ground carelessly; the new girl let out a small noise from the fall. As the bespectacled girl picked herself up and brushed off her school uniform, Black Matagi turned around and readied herself to run –

"Ningai-san, wait!" shouted Yomi urgently. Against her better judgment, Black Matagi remained still. "Ningai-san…I know it's you. I…after you got into that fight at school and ran off, I chased after you and…and I saw you…change. I know you're really Black Matagi, Ningai-san. So…can you please just…talk to me…?"

The way she spoke – so small and sheepish – was rather pathetic in Black Matagi's mind. And in all honesty, she didn't owe this new girl an explanation – it's not like anyone would ever believe that a creepy social pariah like Reiko Ningai was the hardened vigilante Black Matagi. But, for the second time in a few minutes, Black Matagi went against her better judgment and sighed. The purple flame ignited in her left eye and spread to devour the rest of her body. When the last ember died, Reiko dusted off her hideous canary-yellow uniform and turned on Yomi, glaring menacingly.

"Congratulations, you found Black Matagi," said Reiko spitefully. "Bet you think you're gonna turn me in to the police for a reward? Or maybe you're thinking about using my secret identity to blackmail me? Well, I got news for you, bitch. I'll punch out your teeth before you can even – "

"Wait, wait, it's not like that!" said Yomi fretfully, holding up her hands in surrender. "I swear, I didn't find out your secret identity on purpose to hurt you. I didn't even think you were Black Matagi to begin with. It's just…I was worried about you is all…."

"Worried about me?" repeated Reiko, her brow raised.

"Yeah, about that fight," Yomi muttered in a small voice. "I won't pretend to know much about what's going on at school, but it looked like you being treated unfairly. Those girls were being mean to you for the sake of being mean, and talked about your friend. I'm not saying that what you did to them was right, but it was still wrong of them to hurt you like that. I tried telling the teachers it wasn't your fault, but it's like they didn't want to believe me."

"And why would they?" said Reiko harshly. That whore's daddy makes a lot of donations to the school – and by donations, I mean he bribes the principle and teachers to give the slut a pass on everything."

"But that isn't right," said Yomi agape.

"Welcome to the real world, princess," said Reiko with a sneer, "where the one percent assholes can make the rules and do whatever the hell they want while the rest of us are their bitches. You know how your parents say that with hard work and perseverance, you can do anything? Yeah, well, that's total bull crap. Unless you have the money, you can't do shit."

Yomi hanged her head in silence, letting Reiko's cruel words wash over her. The Black Star scoffed and looked away from the new girl. And then, after a long moment of silence, Yomi spoke up:

"I don't think you did it…."

"Say what now?" said Reiko confused.

"The news is always saying how Black Atagi killed Mato Kuroi six months ago," said Yomi calmly, "but I don't think you did it. I saw the way you reacted when that mean girl started talking badly about Kuroi-san. You didn't care about what they said about you, but you got angry once they started saying those horrible things to Kuroi-san. It's obvious that you cared about her very much…so I don't think you killed her."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" questioned Reiko strictly. "One person doesn't think I'm a murderer. Whoop-de-damn-doo."

"I'm just saying, you're not as bad as people think you are," said Yomi sincerely. "Whether it's as Black Matagi or Reiko Ningai-san, I know you're still a good person. You got out every day risking your life, selflessly protecting hundreds of people you don't know from monsters and never ask for anything in return. Someone like that could never be a bad person. You're a good person; a hero! If the rest of the world knew what I did, they would never think you would've hurt Kuroi-san!"

Reiko stayed silent during the entire exchange, her face never betraying any sign of emotion.

"I know me just saying that doesn't mean much," Yomi continued. "But I just want you to know that, if you ever need anything, or just want to talk to someone, you always count on me. And I hope…maybe…we could be friends. If that is all right with you, Ningai-san?"

The bespectacled girl offered Reiko a soft smile as she held out her hand, hoping that the Black Star might accept it as a friendly gesture. For a long moment, Reiko just stared at the outstretched limb as if it were something foreign, which, considering her lifestyle, might as well have been as far as she was concerned. When Reiko made no move to return the gesture, Yomi's smile started to falter. Did Ningai-san not want to be her friend? Did she think that she wasn't trustworthy enough to agree? But these thought were brushed away with a sigh of relief as Reiko slowly and purposely strode over to close the gap between them, still showing no express. Reiko raised her hand….

…and slapped Yomi across the face.

The bespectacled girl gasped in shock, falling down to her knees with her hand on her cheek. She could feel the heat from where the hand connected; the skin was throbbing painfully. Yomi shuddered, fighting back angry tears as she stared up at Reiko. The Black Star's glare was the most menacing it had been all day; her lips were curled in a deep frown and her eyes showed nothing but scorn and contempt.

"You think I'm dumb enough to buy into the crap?" said Reiko harshly.

"Wha - ?" Yomi stammered. "I don't – I don't under – "

"Stuff the goody-two-shoes bullshit," Reiko snapped; Yomi winced. "You think I don't know what you're playing at? The sweet little new girl suddenly becoming best friends with the lonely outcast that is secretly a mystically powered vigilante; it's like something you would find out of a D-class anime. Except that shit doesn't happen in real life. Everyone has an angle, even you."

"No, I don't!" shouted Yomi. "I swear, I – "

"You just want to be best buddies because you know what I am," hissed Reiko. "You want to take advantage of Black Matagi for your own benefit!"

"That's not what I – "

"You think you want to have fun with the faggot for a while, just for kick!" Reiko was now yelling at the top of her lungs; Yomi started to cry. "And then when shit hits the fan – and it always does – you ditch the lesbo freak and tell everyone how you were just playing around! Then everyone has a good laugh at me!"

"No!" Yomi screamed. "That's not what I want! You have to believe – "

Reiko slapped her across the face for a second time; the sound of clapping flesh echoed in the empty alley. Yomi lay on the trash littered ground with her face in the asphalt, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, and letting out muffled hiccupping noises. Reiko only glared at the pathetic creature she had knocked to the ground, completely devoid of all feeling. She was not happy that she had hurt the new girl, nor did she feel regret. She felt…nothing….

"If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your fat mouth shut," said Reiko cruelly, turning her back on her. "Don't ever talk to me again."

Reiko left Yomi in that alley, alone and weeping, without ever looking back.

But unnoticed by either girl during their horrid affair, they had been watched by a pair of soulful blue eyes from the fire escape. It appeared to be another version of Black Rock Shooter, but she was dramatically different in terms of appearance and expression than any other like her. Instead of a black coat, she donned and pitch-black poncho that draped across her shoulders with a black fur collar and a white star on the shoulder. Underneath the poncho, she wore a white sundress with two black stripes across the chest area that ended in a puffy skirt. A large black belt secured her dress by the waist and the black boots reached all the way to her upper thighs. Compared to the rest of the Black Rock Shooters, she was very feminine.

As the feminine Black Rock Shooter watched the Black Star leave, something slithered out from underneath her poncho and stared with her. It looked like a gigantic black snake with no eyes with a silver line stretching from its crooked lips down its smooth body. The black snake slithered around the Black Rock Shooter's shoulders, resting its head at the crook of her neck while the girl slowly petted it. The Black Rock Shooter frowned.

"I'm not sure about this, Ron," said the Black Rock Shooter. "Her personality seems a little…cruel."

"It's her hard nature that'll come in handy, Rock," said the snake called Ron. "Lady Ram says she will be valuable in the war. We need her help."

"All right," said Rock with a grimace. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."


	6. From SHDO We Will Watch Over You

Black Rock Shooter © Huke  
All Characters © Respective Owners.

*Character design based off artwork by Dan-heron

* * *

 **Record Five: From SHDO We Will Watch Over You**

 **World-7929 (RWBYverse)**

It was like a warzone – the buildings were in shambles, piles of scrap metal and broken stones littered everywhere, and hundreds of broken object that could potentially bruise, cut, maim, or all-around kill a person if they weren't watching their step. Somewhere very close to the area, a chorus of massive explosions could be heard; the ground rumbled with every blast, causing many of the already crumbling structures to break apart faster. The blasts were edging closer with every passing second, seemingly forming a straight line towards the ruins. And not a moment later, a small girl leaped over the cracked high wall, sailing through the air with skill and grace.

She started running when her feet touched the ground, but before she could even take three steps, the wall behind her burst outwards and sent her flying across the terrain, slamming into a car skeleton. With a soft groan, the girl grasped the edges of the car skeleton and ripped herself out, panting hard.

The girl was at the age of a young adult, but her body was small and slender like that of a teenager; her short, dark hair tied up into choppy pigtails, the fringes slightly shading her bright blue eyes. She wore a midnight-blue bomber jacket with a large white star stamped on the back, similar to the emblem on the front of her lighter-blue shirt and the symbols on the back of her fingerless blue gloves. Her dark-blue shorts were held up by two belts – one white, one black – with light- and dark-blue leggings reaching down to her dark boots. A dark blue choker was tied around her neck, but it was more for decorative purposes than anything else. **(*)**

The woman's eyes narrowed and she took several slow steps back around the car skeleton as two more figures stepped over the broken wall fragments. Both of them were strong-looking men roughly around the same age as she was. One of them was very handsome with short blonde hair carrying a red-and-blue shield shaped like a gear; his partner was thinner and clearly used too much hair gel, carrying himself around in sparkling-silver boots and gauntlets. The woman crouched low so that only her head was sticking out over the car roof, eying them with a wary look.

"Oh my, it appears that Sable Nocturne has found herself in quite the conundrum!" said the pompous windbag of an announcer. "It would seem that she has been pinned down by Van Stark and Rust Rogers! Nocturne has been put at a disadvantage since Stark had disarmed her earlier in the fight, forcing her on the run! Meanwhile, Nocturne's partner is still nowhere to be found! This does not bode well for Team SHDO!"

"I would not count them out just yet, Peter, my friend!" said his hyperactive co-worker. "While it is indeed true that Team VRDN possesses greater strength and firepower, Team SHDO made it this far in the tournament through cunning and strategy. And if history has taught us anything, it is that with a well thought-out plan, even the mightiest of adversaries can be overcome. The disappearance of Miss Domino Bones early in the match may indeed be part of Team SHDO's stratagem."

"Let's hope you're right, Barty," said Peter exuberantly. "Because it look like Nocturne is – ooh, Nocturne is going to be feeling that one in the morning!"

The crowd went wild as an explosion went off in the middle of the Urban Zone and Sable was seen flailing through the air into the Desert Zone. The dark-themed Huntress hit the ground hard on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her, then bounced and landed on her back, sliding several feet across the arid environment. Sable groaned; the dry desert sand was choking her lungs and the coliseum's artificial sun was glaring her eyes – it made her feel nostalgic for her home in Vacuo.

An all too familiar sound reached Sable's ears and the dark-themed Huntress raised her head, none too surprised to see Van Stark hovered nearby, keeping himself afloat with the propulsion engines of his gloves and boots. Sable cursed; damn Atlas and their hyper advanced technology. Rust Rogers followed shortly, leaping over the wall to the Urban Zone and dashing over to his partner's side, his shield raised defensively. Now that they were both her, Sable pulled her legs up to her chest and threw herself back up to her feet, glaring at the pair as they started to circle around her. While they weren't attacking yet, Sable chanced a peek at the board. Her aura levels were dangerously low; she was only a couple hits away from being legally defeated.

"Damn it, Domino, what's taking so long," hissed Sable, stepping cautiously in place. "I swear, if you're late again – "

Stark aimed one of those damnable gloves of his at Sable and shot a burst of energy at her feet. The dark Huntress jumped out of the way easily, but she hadn't been paying attention when Rogers threw his shield, crushing the side of her ribcage with one of the indentations; her bones would have snapped had she not been protected by aura. Sable's back hit the wall of the high ridge, but still found the strength necessary to stand. Roger's rushed at her with his shield in front, but Sable jumped up with her feet pressed against the ridge wall and pushed off, deftly flipping over her opponent before he slammed into the rocks. But as she was spinning in midair, Stark shot a blast of energy from his gloves and nailed her in the center of her back, throwing her down into the dirt.

Sable coughed; the dry desert dust had lodged itself in her throat. She didn't need to see the board to know where she stood. One more hit and she would be eliminated from the competition. Sable slammed her foist into the ground. 'Damn it, Domino, where are you' was what Sable screamed in her head, but chose not to let her opponents know her frustration.

"Man, this has gotta be the easiest match yet," said Stark arrogantly, hovering over her like the Atlesian elitist that he was. "And you were worried for nothin', Rusty."

"Don't let you're guard down, Stark," said Rogers, speaking like a true Atlesian soldier. "Nocturne may be down, but we still have Bones to deal with. We've taken significant damage during the fight and she's still untouched. Clearly they're planning something. We should proceed with caution – "

"Dude, they're from Vacuo – they're savages," said Stark condescendingly. He aimed his glove at Sable's face; energy starting to build in his palm. "I'm sure a super soldier and a genius can handle a little – "

 _ **BANG!**_

The gunshot sounded like it came from very far away, but the noise still rang out over the hollers from the audience. All of a sudden, Stark started spinning in the air, seemingly losing control of his momentum; Rogers wisely pulled his shield in front of him before the second shot could land its mark. When Stark finally regained control of himself, he looked down at his right gloves with his jaw slack. From what Sable could see from her position on the ground, the bullet had jammed itself dead center of the Atlesian's gloves, thereby disabling the tech and leaving Stark hovering at a tilt.

A third shot rang out across the arena and a shower of sparks erupted from the ankle of Stark's left boot. The self-proclaimed genius cried out in a panic as the booster in the damaged boot flared and the Atlesian started spiraling out of control back into the Urban Zone, slamming into multiple buildings that would no doubt affect his aura counter. Rogers seemingly anticipated the next shot was coming and raised his shield to block before running over behind the rocks, keeping out of sight of the sniper. Sable had to give it to him; for an Atlesian, he was pretty good.

Sable heard a sharp _beep_ in her ear and tapped it, scowling.

"It's about time you got set up!" hissed Sable furiously. "Do you know how close I was to being knocked out? Why didn't you take the shot sooner?"

"You can't rush perfection," said Domino Bones calmly over their comms. "I'm not like Zedong; I can't just take random shots and hope for the best. I need time to find a decent location that has both the height advantage and an adequate view of the terrain. I'd be pointless if I could be where you were. Plus, you didn't exactly make it easy for me to get the shot with you running around."

"Oh, I'm sorry, next time you can be the bait and I'll be shooting from the sidelines!" snapped Sable irritably. "Where in Remnant are you, anyway?"

"In the Mountain Zone, where else?" said Domino as if it were the most obvious thing in Remnant.

Sable grimace and faced in the direction of the region directly opposite the Desert Zone. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, sliding back and forth across the mountain range until she caught a small glint on the ledge near the top. Even from a distance, Sable knew what partner was doing.

Domino Bones was a slender young woman with all the right curves that would make every man (and woman) turn their heads, which she subtly bragged about from time-to-time. Her skin was unusually pale for someone who attended school in Vacuo, but that was contributed to the fact that she was raised in Atlas before transferring. Her shoulder-length hair was raven-black with the exception of many white hairs that looked like they formed three white circles; her teammates always assumed that's why she was named Domino. She wore a skin-tight, black-and-gray body suit made from heavy-grade Kevlar that she never zipped fully and exposed a lot of cleavage, a steel belt buckle with eight pouches strapped to her waist, and black combat boots.

Domino smirked, peering through the scope of her black-and-gray sniper rifle at her dark-themed partner, who was frowning at her from a distance.

"Don't give me that look," said Domino teasingly. "You know I got your back, short stack."

"Who're you calling so tiny she could ride an ant like a horse?" Sable raged, flailing her arms angrily.

"That's not at all what I said," Domino replied with a small chuckle. "Also, you may want to watch out for Captain Atlas behind you."

Sable turned on her heel as Rust Rogers leaped over his hiding space behind the rocks, throwing his shield across the air. Midway from reaching the dark-themed Huntress, Domino shot the rim of the shield and slanted it sideways, making the shield brush against the ground. The shield visibly slowed and Sable leaned down to catch the weapon, spinning around with the momentum, and lifted over her upper body as Rogers' feet stomped down. Sable pushed against the shield and Rogers skillfully flipped backwards, landing on his feet, and dropped down for a sweeping kick. Sable jumped the leg and raised the shield when Rogers swung around with a right hook; the blow against the shield left her noticeably shaken. While she was disoriented, Rogers grabbed the edges of his shield and ripped it out of Sable's hands, kicking the Huntress in the stomach and knocking her to the ground.

Sable hit the ground, but quickly flipped back up to her feet just moments before Rogers' shield came down. The Atlesian soldier punched at Sable, which she swiped away easily, but then pushed her away and turned with his shield raised, blocking an explosive round sent his way by Domino. Sable moved forward while he was distracted and kicked him in the jaw, causing the soldier to stumble, before Domino shot a lightning round in his exposed backside and watched with a wicked grin as Rogers convulsed sporadically. Sable then reached into her coat pocket, pulling out a pair of yellow Dust crystals and crushing them in her palms. As the dust coated her hands, a thick layer of stone started to cover until it looked like she was wearing a pair of rock gloves.

When Rogers finally stopped twitching, he let out a brief sigh of relief, only to face Sable and introduce his face with her hardened fists. The Atlesian soldier tumbled, though he stayed on his feet, and raised his shield over his head as Sable brought down a double-fisted overhead strike. Unfortunately for Rogers, at the moment when Sable's blow connected with his shield, Domino shot a blank at Rogers' ankle, which caused his leg to buckle and gave out under the weight of Sable's fists. The dark-themed Huntress forced Rogers' to his hands and knees, kicking the shield out of his hand and lifting him by the collar of his jacket. While holding the Atlesian suspended by one hand, Sable pulled back her stone fist and slammed her knuckles into his chest; the stone fists shattered on impact.

Domino smirked as she lowered her scope and looked to the board to see their status. She and Sable had knocked down the soldier's aura meter to a third with their combination attacks, and the self-proclaimed genius was depleting his own meter by flying into the environments of the zones. Domino shouldered her rifle as she looked to the Urban Zone; there was a lot of smoke and falling debris, telling her that Stark was flailing through. She tapped her ear comms.

"Hey, washboard, the package is on the way," said Domino. "You might wanna over outta the way."

"Who're you calling washboard?" screeched Sable, making Domino cringe. "I'm a B-cup! B-CUP!"

Domino merely smirked and disconnected, but she could still her partner raging from across the arena. She checked the time on her scroll and then turned her attention to the Urban Zone as, right on schedule, Stark shout out of the ruins, still screaming in a panic as he spiraled out of control. Domino casually pulled out a plastic device from one of her pouches and delicately dropped it over the edge…directly onto Stark's back just as he was passing under her. The sniper quickly pulled up and, after taking careful consideration of the angle and the speed, fired a drilling round towards the Forest Zone. Stark, who had been flying towards the trees, was suddenly rocketed in the opposite direction when Domino's bullet connected with the ankle of his remaining boot, sending him flying towards the Desert Zone.

Meanwhile, Sable was taking careful steps away from Rust Rogers as the Atlesian soldier pulled himself up to his feet, leering at the dark Huntress suspiciously. The warrior from Vacuo didn't miss the brief glances he was making towards his shield, knowing he was going to make a run for it. So…Sable let him. The dark Huntress casually looked to her right, acting as if something caught her attention, and Rogers took the bait. The Atlesian Soldier dashed over and picked up his shield, turning to Sable to attack when…

"Rusty, outta the way!"

"Huh?" said Rust Rogers confused.

The Atlesian soldier looked over his shoulder, but he was too late to move out of the way before his partner slammed into him from behind, carrying both and crashing into one of the desert ridges. Sable laughed in a mischievous fashion and nonchalantly walked away towards the central area, already spotting her partner heading in the same direction.

Van Stark and Rust Rogers groan, their heads pounding from the impact, but the Atlesian tech user was just grateful that his boots had finally run out of fuel. Then, in the moment of silence between them, both men of Team VRDN perked in attention when they heard a soft beeping noise. The pair from Atlas looked around for a moment until Rogers located the source on his attached to his partner's back. It only took a short moment for them to realize what the device was and both were scrambling to remove it from Stark. Rust ripped the object off his partner and pulled back his arm –

 _ **BOOM!**_

Sable and Domino raised their hands over their faces to block out the blowback from the explosion. When the blast subsided and they lowered their hands, the duo from Vacuo found their opponents on the ground on top of each other, both looking disoriented and mumbling incoherently. Suddenly, a horn blared over the loudspeakers and Sable and Domino turned their eyes toward the board, rather than finding the aura meters they saw both their faces expanded on the screen as the crowd exploded into cheers.

"What an unprecedented turn of events!" said "Barty" the commentator. "Despite the overwhelming force of Team VRDN against them, Team SHDO has subdued their opponents with an excellent display or cunning, resourcefulness, and teamwork! A truly spectacular match!"

"You can say that again, old friend!" said Peter jubilantly. "Looks like Team SHDO will be moving on to the one-on-one matches. I can't wait to see what they do next!"

Sable and Domino turned to each other and shared gleeful smiles, happy with the outcome of their hard-earned victory. The duo raised their hands together and –

* * *

"Team SHDO!" the four girls cheered, clicking shot glasses together.

It was very late at night at the tournament fairgrounds, long after the double matches had ended. After watching the remaining matches (including the disaster of fight between Team RWBY and Team FNKI), Sable thought it would be a perfect time to celebrate their victory. They had found a quaint little noodle stall operated by an old man that was surprisingly fast for his age and had already been loaded up on noodles and six bottles of hard whiskey in under three seconds (Domino was a very heavy drinker). As Sable downed the alcohol and let out a breathy sigh, she rested her head on her hand with her elbow on the counter, casting her gaze to her teammates.

Sable best friend and partner, Honey Malaya, sat on her left side, nose deep into her bowl of noodles and salmon, not bothering with her utensils. Honey was the tallest of Team SHDO standing a good few inches above Domino (and a full head above her, Sable begrudgingly admitted). Her hair was short and fluffy in a dark-yellow shade that resembled her name with a pair of small round ears poking out from the top of her head that came as part of her nature as a bear Faunus. She wore a brown-and-yellow zipped up jacket that was extra thick around the arms and was printed with her symbol (a tipped over honey pot) on the back, a pair of khaki pants with metallic guards around her shins, a crooked leather belt, and a cute animated charm hanging out of her pocket.

And on the opposite side of the stall was Domino's partner, Olive Evergreen; an extraordinarily elegant woman that made even slurping noodles look sophisticated. Her skin was a rich shade of tan (or olive skinned as Domino would say) that was free of any blemishes or mark and her hair silky smooth hair was a beautiful shade of light-brown; she was the picture of femininity. She wore a flowing dress that was a lighter shade of green from her breasts to her shoulders, but was white below the waist with her personal symbol (a dove carrying a branch in its beak) stamped in three places around the hem. She had a spiral arm band made from the finest silver on her left bicep, seven golden bangles on her right wrist, a light-green cloth wrapped around her waist, and an emerald pendent around her neck.

Smiling to herself, Sable downed another shot of whiskey, loving the burning sensation it gave her throat, and slammed the glass down on the counter, which drew the attention of her teammates.

"This is it, ladies," said Sable confidently. "This will be the day we've waited for. After four long years of training, studying, fighting, hunting, and overall having to put up with each other, this will finally be the year we finally win the Vytal Tournament."

"I certainly hope so, considering our previous years in the tournament," said Olive with her rich (Irish) accent. "The last year, Miss Honey and Miss Domino were knocked out at the last moment in the double rounds by those pair from Team CFVY. And the year before that, Miss Sable and I were completely overwhelmed by Miss Arslan and Mister Bolin from Team ABRN. Of course, those matches were acceptable compared to that disastrous team round in our first year."

"That was because Sable refused to buy me time to set up and I got pinned down in five minutes," said Domino, making loud slurping sounds with her noodles.

"Hey, I'm sorry about that, okay," said sable, slamming down the bottle irritably. "But when I found out you were from Atlas, it was just instinctive for me to leave you out to dry. I know that's unfair and a little bitchy, but that's just who I am."

"You really hate people from Atlas, don't ya, boss?" said Honey, her cheeks stuffed comically with noodles.

"I can't stand those conceited, snot-nosed, stuck-up elitists who put more faith in their machines than their Hunters," said Sable savagely, downing another shot. "Those assholes think they're better than everyone just because they force their hunters into a military and have all their fancy robots and gadgets! They looked down on people from Vacuo like we're a bunch of mindless animal. You heard that guy from VRDN – he called me a savage!"

"You see what you started," Domino muttered to Honey.

"And those holier-than-thou Schnees; they are the worst of Atlesians!" Sable ranted, taking another shot of whiskey. "I wish I had gotten to beat that Schnee from Team RWBY around! You know what they do, right? They horde all the Dust for themselves and run all other Dust shops out of business so that they can sell for three times the price! And that's not even going into all the shady business deals they're involved in! And the Faunus! You heard all the stories about Faunus being forced to work in their mines for minimum wage, no benefits, and with complete disregard their safety! How can you not be angry, Honey? These are your people!"

"Okay, Sable, I think you had enough," said Olive gently, getting up from her seat and walking over to her leader. "Why don't you put down the alcohol and we all head to bed, all right?"

"Lightweight," scoffed Sable, taking a shot herself.

"But as bad as the Schnees are, at least they're not as stupid as the military!" Sable continued, keeping her glass away from Olive's outstretched hand. "Those arrogant pricks think they can trust a bunch of robots to protect the people? Those damn tin cans would be ripped shreds against the Grimm – the only reason they were credited for the Breach was because the Hunters already did all the hard work for them! They were just clean up detail! And how is it a good idea to trust them? Machines don't know anything about loyalty; they're just programmed to follow orders! It wouldn't surprise me if one day some villain suddenly reprogrammed them to turn on humanity!"

"The boss is seriously hammered, Domino," said Honey, turning to the sniper. "Don't you think we should do something?"

"What for?" said Domino with an amused chuckle. "She's much more fun this way."

"Domino…" said Olive in a warning tone.

"And – and that dumbass Ironwood," said Sable, taking yet another shot. "He's so arrogant and full of himself. He's so blind to his own screw-ups that he doesn't even see that that this tournament has been completely rigged by…by those jerks!" she added, pointing to the corner.

Honey, Domino, and Olive the accusatory figure to the small television that stall owner had set up in the corner. The screen of hazy and full of static; the stall owner slammed his fist on top of it a few times to clear the picture. Now the small television was showing a recap of one of the double matches from earlier that day: the match between Team CFVY and the strangely unnamed team from Haven. It was like watching a one-sided massacre. Having fought Team CFVY the previous year, Team SHDO knew what they were capable of wiping out entire armies of Grimm without breaking a sweat and to suddenly see them a weak as newborn cattle made no logical sense. It was as if some higher force had made them purposely weak for the sake of some inconsistent, C-rated story plot.

"They're cheaters, you know," said Sable, taking another shot. "That team from Haven, I mean. They've been cheating from the start."

"Aw, c'mon, just because they beat CFVY doesn't mean they're cheaters," said Honey.

"Actually, they are," said Domino, putting down her glass; Olive and Honey stared in confusion. "I can confirm it with my semblance. All four of them have been cheating since the first match. That girl with the dark skin, Emerald I think her name was, she uses a semblance that tampers with a person's mind and makes them see what she wants them to see. Semblances that can alter a person's mental state are illegal in the Vytal Tournament, yet she's still here. Ironwood probably didn't even bother to run a background check on any of the contestants or she would have never been allowed to compete. And then there's her partner, Mercury. His legs are prosthetic."

"That's not illegal," said Olive.

"Yeah, but I'm betting Ironwood never bothered to check the kind of gear he's using," said Domino. "He specializes in kicking techniques. Had he been using legitimate prosthetics, they would have broken early in the fight. He has to using some illegal tech to give himself an advantage. And then there is the fourth member of their team, the one that suddenly dropped off the map after the team battles ended. She was using a full-body illusion semblance to disguise herself. Now why would she need to conceal her identity unless she wasn't supposed to be there? It makes me think that she might not be a student at Haven."

"I don't think any of them are students," said Sable dryly. "You've seen their leader, right? There's no way an old hag like her can still be a student; she's old enough to be my mother! And somehow, those dumbasses from Atlas don't see anything wrong. Seriously, it's like they were born retarded! But of course, Atlas doesn't see that they screwed up royally because they think they can't do anything wrong. I swear, Atlas is going to be the death of all the Kingdoms."

"If they're really cheating, shouldn't we say something?" asked Honey.

"You think they're going to listen to a bunch of students, especially when we're competing against each other?" said Domino, scowling. "They'll just think we're trying to get rid of the competition because we're afraid. I may be Atlas born, but Sable is right about one thing: Ironwood and his little army is a bunch of conceited pricks."

"But – " said Olive.

"Give it up, Olive," said Sable grimly, pouring herself another shot. "No one is going to listen to us, so there's no point in trying. So for now we'll let those cheaters do whatever they want. If I end up going against them in the one-on-one rounds tomorrow, I can feel safe knowing you guys will be watching my back."

"Of course," said Olive, smiling gently.

"You betcha, boss!" said Honey exuberantly.

"Although it will be hard to see you from the stand, small fry," said Domino teasingly.

"Who're you calling so tiny that I don't need to fear being crushed by a boot because I fit so easily between the grooves of the sole?" Sable raged as she jumped at her teammate, but was held back by Honey.

"Where does she come up with this stuff?" Domino said aloud, knocking back another shot.

"Let's not fight when we should be celebrating," said Olive calmly, patting Sable on the shoulder. "After all, Team SHDO finally made it to the final rounds of the Vytal Tournament after four years. And I'll bet you tomorrow will be a day that we will never forget.

* * *

Olive had been right, Sable thought as she sat on her bed in their temporary living quarters at Beacon Academy. It was the next day and the one-on-one matches had concluded its first round little under and hour ago, but rather than feeling the excitement and adrenaline that had come from watching such a spectacular match, her stomach was wrought with guilt and despair.

The team Leader's knees were bouncing ceaselessly, her chin on top of her folded hands as she stared at the rooms carpeting as if it had insulted her. Olive was sitting in the bed across from her, prim and proper as ever, though she could not hide the look of apprehension that burdened her lovely face. And Honey was leaning out the open window with her head hanging and her fingers clenching the sill; Sable couldn't remember the last time that her partner had looked so forlorn. The members of Team SHDO said nothing to each other; the feeling of regret left them feeling more hopeless than they have ever been in the last four years. The only noise in the room was coming from Honey's scroll on the bedside table, which had been turned to the local news cast.

" – **disaster follows after the recent events that took place at the Vytal Festival Tournament earlier this evening when a student from Beacon Academy deliberately assaulted her opponent after he had already been defeated. Public is outraged by this unwarranted violation of the Vytal Festival's symbolism of unity and Haven Academy is demanded immediate restitution for the damage done to one of the students. Professor Ozpin refused to comment on the events and many are beginning to question what it is they are teaching their students at the once esteemed hunting academy. The huntress charged with assault, Yang Xiao-Long, is currently in cust – "**

 _ **SMASH!**_

The newscaster's voice finally went silent when Sable brought her foot down on top of the scroll, splitting the device in half with her heel.

"Hey, that wasn't cheap, ya know," said Honey.

"I'll get you a new one," mumbled Sable distractedly.

"How could this have happened?" asked Olive somberly. "I just…I don't understand why anyone would do something like this…."

"I can tell you how it happened," said Sable, angrily stomping her feet as she stood. "It's because we didn't listen to you. You said we should have reported to Ironwood about our suspicions and I brushed it off because I my prejudice against Atlas. We all know what happened and Domino confirmed it: that Emerald girl used her semblance to trick an innocent first year into breaking Mercury's leg. Only we know his leg isn't really broken because it's prosthetic. And of course, that girl uses her semblance on the medical staff to make them think the injury is real. Now the whole kingdom is in an uproar. It's just…damn it!" she added, punching the wall hard enough to crack.

"I just don't understand what they get out of all this," said Olive, settling her head in her hands. "What could they possibly take away from upsetting the whole kingdom? Don't they realize that they are attracting the Grimm?"

"Maybe that's what they want," said Honey; Sable and Olive stared at her. "Maybe they want to bring the Grimm to Vale. I've seen people like that before when I was a little cub; the kind of people that just like to see the world burn."

"Nah, it has to be something else, something we're missing," said Sable thoughtfully. "I can understand terrorist groups like the White Fang who would want to destroy the kingdom for the sick pleasure of it, but that team comes off as the type that wouldn't do anything without getting something in return. And whatever it is, it must be big."

The three members of Team SHDO lowered their heads in thought, pondering what would be so important that they would destroy an entire civilization to get. But their quick brainstorm was cut short when a pair of shapely legs appeared from the top of window and Honey jumped back in surprise. Domino dropped down and skillfully landed on the window sill, looking just as subdued as the rest of her teammates. The Atlesian sniper stepped into the room (Honey was gentlemanly enough to help her down), closed the window behind her, and pulled the curtains back. She let out a deep sigh as she turned to their team leader.

"I take it things aren't looking too good out there," said Sable, already knowing the answer.

"It's a disaster," Domino admitted, taking a seat on Sable's bed. "The Grimm are attacking the borders in droves. All available huntsman and Atlesian Knights are doing their best to blockade the perimeter, but the number of Grimm keep increasing the more people think about what happened in today's match. And it doesn't help that those Oum damn news reporters won't shut up about it. And the worst part is that this is only the first wave. If a second wave were to hit Vale, we'd be completely overrun – the Grimm would destroy everything."

"What about that team?" asked Sable. "Emerald and Mercury? Are they still in Vale?"

"I can almost guarantee it," Domino nodded. "Rumor is spreading that Mercury and his team was sent back to Mistral to recover from his injury, but we understand better. Once he's done repairs to his leg, he'll be out and about first thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the Kingdoms are threatening to tear each other apart over this."

"Well, what are we supposed to do now?" asked Honey, sounding almost desperate. "There has to be something we can do to stop this?"

"Like Domino said, if the second wave hits Vale, it's game over," said Sable. "But because we know that, it means we have an edge over whoever it is that's pulling the strings. No doubt they'll want to do something that will trigger a massive invasion, something that will cause the public to become overwhelmed with negative emotions. That means it'll take place during the Vytal Tournament where thousands of people will be watching."

"They already caused pandemonium with what they did to Miss Yang," said Olive thoughtfully, "which means if they want to get the most reaction from the people watching, they'll want to trick someone from the same school."

"Pyrrha Nikos," Honey offered. "She's the only person from Beacon Academy left in the tournament and she's super famous: she's on the box of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes!"

"So we know their location and we know their target," said Sable with a grimace. "If these…monsters are as manipulative as I think they are, then they probably have control of the contest selection, which means it's a safe bet that Pyrrha Nikos will be up tomorrow night. If we want to stop whatever it is they're planning, we need to find Emerald; she's the key to the whole thing."

"You know this is starting to sound more like a suicide mission," said Domino. "If anything Mercury Black will be there to stop anyone from reaching her. If anything, he was probably holding back during his fight with Xiao-Long."

"If that's true, then I'll be the one to worry about Mercury," said Sable. "The rest of you focus on finding Emerald and stopping her before she can use her semblance during the fight. Guys, I know this sounds crazy and completely out of our league, but this is the reason we became Huntresses: to protect people. There's probably not going to be a happy ending at the end out this, but that's why we're here to make things better."

"Yeah!" Honey cheered.

"That's right," said Olive, nodded.

"Eh, why the hell not?" said Domino. "I wasn't planning on living forever anyway…. You know, all joking aside, you turned out to be a hell of a leader. I'm proud of you…half-pint."

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A RUNT SO TINY SHE COULD ONLY BE SEEN WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS, YOU JERK!" Sable raged.

"She/I didn't say that," Honey, Domino, and Oliver said in unison, sweat dropping.

* * *

Sable felt uneasy when she returned to the Amity Coliseum center stage the next night; a feeling that was shared with her competition based solely on their twitching hands and downcast expressions. She was quick to notice that Yang Xiao-Long was not among them – it was very likely that Iron-prick had disqualified her for misconduct. She purposely drowned out the mumblings of the two windbags forced to be their commentators and looked around into the stands. Somewhere in the sea of people, Emerald was waiting to lay another trap and Mercury was watching them, probably laughing it up. Sable scowled. The only thing that calmed her was the knowledge that her teammates were patrolling the audience in search of the pair. Speaking of which, Sable thought as she casually touched her ear and turned on the comms.

"Domino, how's it looking?" Sable muttered in a small voice so the other contestants couldn't hear her.

"No sign of Emerald, but we're still looking," said Domino. "We ran into Team CFVY earlier and they agreed to help – Coco had no trouble believing us since she saw Emerald's semblance firsthand. I've found a good vantage point where I can watch all the exits, so if she tries to make a run for it, I can snipe her while staying out of range of her semblance."

"If her semblance has a range," said Sable. "What about Mercury?"

He was the easiest to find," answered Domino. "Since he doesn't want anyone to know he's still around, he'll want to be hidden somewhere where there is less chance of people finding him. I saw his aura lurking around the maintenance hallway on the far right of the coliseum. I already informed the rest of the team so that they would steer clear of it. I think he – oh shit!"

"What?" hissed Sable in a panic. The monkey Faunus on her right looked at her strangely, so Sable tried to play it cool. "What happened?"

"You know that girl from Team RWBY – the little one in red?" said Domino; Sable could hear her gritting her teeth. "She just went into the maintenance hallway where Mercury is hiding. I think she spotted Emerald. We have to – damn it, they already spotted each other! She's gonna be slaughtered! That's it; I'm calling Honey and Olive!"

"Do that and we'll have three corpses to deal with," hissed Sable, clenching her fist. "We all know I'm the only one that stands a remote chance against him…. We're gonna have to wait until I'm free to go."

"But what if your match is next?" asked Domino, her tone filled with worry.

For a long moment, Sable was silent over their communication link, hanging her head down and gnashing her teeth together with obvious frustration. There was only a one-in-six shot that her match was up next, which meant that if she was called up to fight, she wouldn't be able to run to the maintenance hall and help the red-hooded girl from Xiao-Long's team; she's be leaving her to die. There was always the option of forfeiting the match, but that seemed like a terrible option as well. Sable had watched her teammates work themselves to the bone for the past four years – to forfeit the match would be the same as saying that they had trained all this time for nothing. She didn't want to let her teammates down…but….

"Well…it's just a dumb trophy anyway," said Sable with a deep sigh, allowing herself the freedom of a small smile. "If we want, when this is over, we can just get Olive to buy us all trophies."

"Well, what's the point of having a multimillionaire on the team if you can exploit her for money?" said Domino jokingly.

Sable was pulled out of the conversation when the audience suddenly exploded into cheers and she looked up at the board. It was as they had predicted: Pyrrha Nikos had been selected to fight in the next match, and her opponent would be someone named Penny Polendina from Atlas. Sable let out a breath of relief…then tensed up again when she remembered that there was a fifteen year old girl about to be murdered by a psychopath.

The dark-themed Huntress pivoted on her heels, unintentionally bumping shoulders with the monkey Faunus ("Hey, watch – wait, where are you going?" he said), and made a dash for the stands. She purposely ignored the stares she was receiving from the audience; Sable couldn't imagine how unusual she must have looked to everyone, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Listening to Domino over her earpiece, she followed the directions from the team sniper until she reached the door leading to maintenance hallway. Sable threw her shoulder into the door, slamming it against the wall, and sprinted all full speed around the curving corridor.

She could hear the shotgun fire; she was familiar with it – only two weapons in the entire tournament used those particular shells. So as she rounded the curve, she was none to surprised to see Mercury Black as setting his foot down while the red-hooded girl from Team RWBY flattened on the ground. The younger huntress-in-training was getting back on her feet, holding a mixture of frustration and fear in her face. It didn't seem like she had noticed Sable. That was good; she didn't need the little red to give away her position before she could jump in to help.

As Mercury started pulling back his leg for another attack, Sable saw the opportunity, running down the hall and diving into a slide. The kickboxer only just noticed the surprised look on Ruby's face and looked over his shoulder, but could do nothing to save himself before Sable kicked him in the back of the ankle. As Mercury started to fall backwards, Sable stop herself in the slide, planted her hands firmly on the ground, lifted her body backwards, and kicked the villain square in the chest. The malevolent kickboxer hit the ground with his back, but expectantly bounced back up and landed on his feet without so much as a grimace. If anything, he looked happy that he'd have someone else to kick around other than the little red. It irritated her how overconfident he was.

"Now that wasn't very nice," said Mercury with a humorous tone. "Don't you know it's rude to interrupt people when they're in the middle of a private moment?"

"Eww, gross!" said the little red disgustedly.

"Let's not pretend that none of us know what's going on around here," said Sable seriously. "My team and I have been watching you guys for days and we already figured out your plan. You're using your partner's semblance to trick the contestants into attacking each other to send the crowd into a frenzy and attract the Grimm into Vale. That's why you had Yang Xiao-Long attack you and pretended to be hurt even though your injury was a fake." She added as the little gasped in horror.

"Wow, you're pretty good to figure that out," Mercury complimented sincerely. "You're probably the only people in the entire kingdom that put two and two together. All the other dumbasses are too blind to see what's happening right under their noses. I mean, seriously, we could not have been any more obvious when we were running around scheming. They didn't even recognize Cinder when she broke into the CCT, and her disguise didn't even cover her face that much."

"What I don't understand is why you would do this," said Sable. "Why go through all the trouble of destroying Vale."

"I don't know everything Cinder's planning and I honestly don't care," said Mercury, smriking. "I'm just in it for the kicks. Heh, get it? Kicks? And they said the blondie was the only one that could make puns."

Just then, the crowd outside exploded into cheered; Sable, Mercury, and the little red were momentarily distracted by the noise.

"Sounds like they got a really good match goin' on out there," said Mercury with a small chuckle. "Even if you know what's about to happen, it's too late to stop it. The match has already started and it's only a matter of minutes before Emerald has the 'Invincible Girl' rip that walking tin can into a pile of scrap metal. Just imagine the looks on everyone's faces when they see her oily guts spill out."

"You son of a – hey, girl!" Sable shouted to the little red suddenly.

"Uh, it's Ruby," said Ruby.

"You're name could be mustard for all I care," said Sable rudely; Ruby pouted. "You have to get out of here and stop the match before Emerald has a chance to use her semblance."

"But he's too strong," said Ruby, pointing at Mercury. "I won't be able to get past him in time."

"…. Why are you trying to get past him," asked Sable, who turned to the younger huntress and stared at her like she had said two plus two equals waffles. "You do know you can just go back the way you came, right?"

"…. Huh?" said Ruby, staring blankly.

"Yeah, I wasn't gonna say anything because I was kicking her ass," said Mercury, scratching his chin. "But why is she trying to get past me? I mean, her semblance makes her run super-fast. If she wanted to, she could just turn around, run off, and there would be nothing I could do to catch her. So it really makes no sense why she would waste time trying to fight me even though she knows she can't beat me."

"I know, right?" said Sable. "It sounds like some lazy, half-assed plot device to make the villains seem more undefeatable than they really are, even though there's a simple solution where the heroes could win."

"I get that the kid's younger than everyone else, but she can't be that stupid – " Mercury started.

"Okay, I get it, I'll go back the way I came!" shouted Ruby in annoyance. "How did I suddenly become the bad guy here? You know, I was just – "

"Just get out of here!" Sable and Mercury shouted in unison.

Ruby yelped, turned on her heel, and disappeared down the hallway in a flurry of flying rose petals – that was actually a really cool semblance, Sable thought. Now with the red-hooded Huntress out of the way, Sable turned back to Mercury and crouched low with one fist clenched at her side and the other held palm open towards her opponent; her eyes narrowed in concentration. Mercury little out a small laugh, moving into position as well.

"You know it's not gonna make a difference, right?" said Mercury confidently. "Cinder says that the heroes are gonna lose anyway, so there's no point in trying to fight it."

"I beg to differ," said Sable. "I have a feeling this story is gonna end much differently."

* * *

Emerald couldn't stop herself from grinning; everything was going according to Cinder's plan. Setting the girl who could use polarity against a machine was a stroke of brilliance, a cunning plan that only the brilliant, powerful, beautiful – wow, Mercury was right, she does like to kiss ass.

Down in the arena, she could see that Pyrrha Nikos was being overwhelmed by the walking refrigerator's flying swords, and her mental state wasn't any better if her semblance was correct. Something had happened before the match that made the Invincible Girl even more vulnerable to her mental probing. Honestly, Emerald didn't care for the reason; it made her job a hell of a lot easier.

After a quick exchange of blows, the overgrown coffeemaker had pushed Pyrrha Nikos away until her feet were barely touching the edge of the arena. She looked very tired, but the talking toaster didn't even break a sweat (could robots even sweat, Emerald wondered). The robotic marionette slowly held her hands above her head, drawing the blades high into the air, all of them pointed threateningly at her opponent. Emerald finally found the opening she was looking for, cast her gaze on Pyrrha Nikos, and activated her semblance. The effects of her ability was almost instantaneous; Pyrrha Nikos's face contorted into an expression of alarm as Emerald forced her to see the hundreds of duplicate blades multiplying by the second, even though, thinking logically, such a thing would never happen in real life. But Pyrrha Nikos didn't need to know that, now did she?

The tin can started to pull back when –

"PENNY! PYRRHA! STOP!"

Emerald gapped as the tiny voice somehow amplified itself, making it heard throughout the entire coliseum. The dark-skinned thief shot up from her seat and leaned forward over the edge to look down into the pit; she unconsciously released Pyrrha from her control. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. How the hell did Ruby get down there? Mercury was supposed to make sure that no one got in the way. Emerald gritted her teeth as Penny and Pyrrha lowered their weapons and turned towards the red-hooded girl, completely destroying the fight's momentum. The audience was also upset by the interruption, even more so since they knew Ruby was on the same team as the girl who attacked a defenseless opponent.

"PENNY! PYRRHA! YOU HAVE TO STOP FIGHTING! IT'S A TRAP!" Ruby shouted, flailing her arms wildly.

Penny and Pyrrha looked at each other from across the arena, both looking equally confused, and turned their attention back on Ruby. The girl in the red hood had almost made it to the floating platform when she suddenly found herself surrounded by a squad of Atlesian Soldiers and Knights, each with their guns trained on her. Ruby instinctively raised her hands in surrender.

"Ruby Rose, you are in violation of Vytal Tournament legislation!" one of the soldiers shouted angrily. "Vacate the area immediately!"

"No, you have to stop the match!" said Ruby urgently; the Atlesians scowled and held their weapons higher. "You have to listen to me! We need to stop the match now before Penny gets hurt!"

"What the hell are you doing, Mercury?" Emerald hissed from her seat in that stands.

"Hey, bitch!"

Emerald looked over to her left, scowling…and then Coco punched her across the face, instantly knocking her out. The fashionable gunwoman chuckled nefariously as she wiped off her glove; Olive stood behind her with her hands folded and a reluctant smile.

"That's for breaking my favorite pair of shades," said Coco venomously.

"Well, that was unrealistically easy," said Olive, chuckling awkwardly. "I wonder how Sable is doing in all this."

* * *

Sable winced when her back hit the wall hard, but she had very little time for pain as Mercury charged with another flying kick, and rolled out of the way. Mercury's foot smashed through the concrete, leaving him momentarily trapped. Sable cashed in on the opportunity with two punches across the face, a knee to the abdomen, and a quick roundhouse kick to throw him back. To be expected, the gray assassin barely hobbled two paces before he was standing straight again, smirking all smug-like as if saying he didn't feel a thing.

Mercury cracked his neck dramatically; Sable brought her fists in front defensively. After a few seconds of just staring each other down, Mercury rushed after her and threw another flying kick, which Sable deftly shoved to one side with her left hand while swinging her right towards his face. The gray assassin leaned his head back to duck the fist and landed, shooting his leg back to kick Sable in the back with an explosive round. The Huntress rolled across but used her momentum to throw herself back up to her feet. When she looked up again, Mercury was already in front of her. Sable was helpless as the killer slammed his boot into her stomach, lifted her off the ground, and spun around for a second explosive kick that launched Sable into the ceiling, creating a spider web of cracks in the pavement.

Sable audibly groaned as she ripped herself free and dropped down, thankfully landing on her feet. The dark-themed Huntress was bended over holding her knees for support while her breath was heavy with exhaustion. She had been right to assume that Mercury was holding back in his fight against Xiao-Long. Had it been anyone else from her team, they would have been dead without the first two minutes. But luckily, Sable was made specifically to take a beating.

Catching her second wind, Sable brought her fists up to tell Mercury that she wasn't giving up the fight; Mercury shook his head and chuckled smugly. But before either of them could take the next step, the maintenance hallway suddenly echoed with the sounds of thousands of people jeering in unison. Sable and Mercury stared at the wall together, imagining what was happening on the other side; Sable laughed triumphantly.

"Sounds like Ruby stopped the match in time," said Sable confidently. "And I'll bet you twenty lien that my team has already caught your partner. It's over, Mercury."

"It's not gonna be that easy," said Mercury. "They don't have anything that can prove Emerald's semblance is real - mental semblances are so rare that they're almost non-existent. And they're not gonna believe someone whose sister just busted a helpless man's kneecap."

"Yeah, you have a point," said Sable. "Guess I'm just gonna have to drag your sorry ass out there and show everyone."

Mercury laughed out loud.

"You?" said Mercury mockingly. "I've watched your fights and you're just a little better than a punching bag. You aren't seriously saying you can take me, right?"

"True, I don't hold a candle to you," Sable admitted as a small grin stretched across her face. "But I'm still gonna win. Fair warning, though: I'm not the kind of enemy you want to turn your back on."

* * *

Down in the arena, Ruby tried shoving her way through the Atlesian Knights towards the center stage, but the robotic soldiers shouldered her away, throwing her roughly on the ground. Penny and Pyrrha then rushed over to the edge of the battlefield, but didn't jump out of the ring – they were still in the middle of a match and they didn't want to be disqualified.

"Ruby, what's going on?" called Penny.

"Are you okay?" asked Pyrrha.

"Penny, Pyrrha, you have to stop fighting!" shouted Ruby as she jumped up and tried running again; the Atlesian Knights were holding her back. "It's Emerald! She has a semblance that messes with people's heads! She did it to Yang and she's going to do it to you, Pyrrha! She wants you to hurt Penny so they can call the Grimm into Vale!"

"Ruby…what are you…," said Pyrrha slowly. "That doesn't…that doesn't make any sense…."

"It certainly doesn't," said a deep, aggressive voice. Ruby cringed as she slowly turned around and came face-to-face with Iron-prink – er, I mean wood. "Miss Rose, you and your team have caused quite enough trouble during the tournament as it is. I can understand why you feel the need to defend your sister and feel obligated to blame others for her problems, but that does not give you the right to make such outlandish accusations against our guests from the other kingdoms."

"It's not…whatever you said!" shouted Ruby, rushing up to the general. "Mercury and Emerald are trying hurt Penny!"

"Mr. Black and Miss Sustrai were sent back to Mistral for recovery," said Ironwood, leering at her. "Look, I'm trying to be reasonable here, Miss Rose. Ozpin is a dear friend of mine and he is already under a lot of pressure for what your sister did. Please, just come with me and – "

"You're not listening!" Ruby screamed furiously. "Mercury is still here!"

* * *

Mercury wiped his chin, spitting out a small spurt of blood. He was man enough to admit when someone was good, and Sable was definitely good – of course, that was to be expected from an experienced Huntress. But even though she managed to get in a few lucky shots, she still stood no chance against him.

The dark–themed huntress had been one of his better; she knew how to take a punch and didn't know when to back down from a hopeless situation. If she hadn't been so annoyingly moral, Mercury would have found that hot. But now Sable lay battered and broken at his feet, face flat in a pool of her own blood. Her left arm had been snapped in three different places and her leg was bending in the wrong direction from the kneecap; nasty purple bruises covered the exposed spaces of her skin, and her right eye was swollen shut. But the worst injury was the most fatal: the massive hole that went through her chest and opened into her back where her heart once was.

Mercury wasn't the squeamish type, but he didn't want to spend all day staring at a dead girl's corpse. Her teammates probably knew where she was, which meant it was only a matter of time before they showed up, probably with the entire security force. And if Sable was telling the truth, Emerald's already been caught, which would make it a lot more difficult for him to get away unnoticed. He sighed irritably, dusting off his clothes as he turned away from Sable's body.

"When Cinder finds out Emerald's been caught, she's gonna be pissed," Mercury muttered to himself. "Maybe I should take her advice and lay low for a while."

"I told you already, I'm not the kind of enemy you want to turn your back on."

Mercury stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide and his jaw dropped. That voice…there's no way in hell she could…. Mercury turned on his heel and was dumbfounded when he saw Sable; all of her bruises were gone, her bones were realigned, and the massive gap in her chest was filled in by prefect, unblemished skin. The gray assassin lost his voice, unable to wrap his mind around the fact that all of his hard work did nothing. Sable chuckled haughtily as she raised her cannon to his face and her finger moved for the trigger….

* * *

"Why aren't you listening to me?!" yelled Ruby as she was being restrained by the Atlesian Knights. "I'm telling you, it's Emerald and Mercury! They're in the coliseum right now! You need to stop the match before – "

"That's enough, Miss Rose, you've already caused a scene," said Ironwood patiently. "If you won't leave voluntarily, then I will have you escorted out."

"But I'm telling you the truth!" said Ruby. "Emerald used some weird semblance to mess with Yang's head and Mercury's leg is fine! They're trying to get people mad so they can get the Grimm to attack – "

"That's enough, Miss Rose!" snapped Ironwood sternly. "I've humored you by listening to your conspiracy theories, but this has gone on long enough! Unless you have definitive proof that what you're saying is true, I will have no choice but to arrest – "

 _ **BOOM!**_

Ruby, Ironwood, Penny, Pyrrha, and the entire stadium turned in unison toward the right-hand side of the stadium where a cloud of gray smoke was wafting through the newly formed hole. Something was thrown through the hole; a blur of gray arched through the air, dropped into the pit, and rolled across the floor until it stopped face-down at General Ironwood's feet. The tossed objected groaned as he slowly stood up, holding his forehead where a killer headache was starting to form. Mercury shook his head free from the dizziness and looked around; he let out a silent yelp as he stared into the face of the Atlesian General, who shared a similar stunned expression. The audience exploded into a whirlwind of shock and confusion, but Ironwood paid them no mind; his face twisted into an expression of utter contempt and Ruby's a look of relief.

"See, I told you!" said Ruby pointedly.

"Arrest him!" shouted Ironwood.

The Atlesian Knight dropped Ruby – the red-headed girl smacked unceremoniously on the ground – and jumped on Mercury. The gray assassin scowled and threw his leg out to kick the nearest soldier, but Ironwood's hand suddenly shot out and grabbed him by the ankle before the blow could connect. And the next moment, Ironwood lifted Mercury off the ground by his foot and slammed him into ground hard enough to cause a small indentation in the cement. The Atlesian soldier quickly piled on top of the assassin and processed with the arresting process and Ironwood, ever curious, unstrapped Mercury's boots and pulled them off.

"Prosthetics," said Ironwood, leering at the false legs. "So you were telling the truth, Miss Rose."

"I said you should listen to me!" aid Ruby indignantly. "Why doesn't anybody ever listen to me?"

"This coming from the girl who thought it was a good idea to try and run past the guy that could kill her," said Sable, walking up to the group as she deactivated her cannon.

"Hey, you're alive!" said Ruby, sounding genuinely surprised. "How'd you beat him?"

"I didn't," said Sable. "If it were a fair fight, he would have killed me in two minutes. Luckily, my semblance is regeneration. So after he kicked my ass, I waited until my body fixed itself and then I sucker punched him while his back was turned."

"That doesn't fair," said Ruby frowning.

"Do you want fair, or do you want justice?" said Sable, raising a brow.

"Well, this proves a lot of evidence in Miss Xiao-Long's defense," said Ironwood, watching the Atlesian Knights drag Mercury away. "But that doesn't explain why two medical specialists thought Mercury Black's leg was injured – "

"We can explain that."

Everyone present turned as Domino led the remainder of Team SHDO and Team CFVY across the pit – this stadium has the worst security in Remnant, Sable thought. The giant of Team CFVY – Yatsuhashi if Sable remembered correctly – was carrying someone over his shoulder, and when Coco snapped her fingers, the large hunter dropped them on the floor at Ironwood's feet. It was Emerald, bound and gagged with a blindfold over her eyes to prevent her from using her semblance.

"Emerald's semblance is hypnotism," explained Domino. "She can make people see things that aren't really there. She used her semblance on Yang Xiao-Long last night to make it look like Mercury was attacking her so that she would react in defense. And then when the medical staff arrived, she used her semblance again to make them see a flesh and blood leg instead of mechanical parts."

"But another question is how you could know what Sustrai's emblance is," said Ironwood, turning to Domino.

"Because of my semblance," said Domino with a wicked smile. "My ability allows me to see aura, whether it's in the atmosphere or the human – or Faunus - body. I knew Mercury Black's legs were fake from the start because there was no aura flowing through them. I also noticed Emerald's aura happened to overshadow anyone whenever she used her semblance, which led me to believe that it had to be a mental-based. Since semblances that affect the mind are so rare, it was almost impossible to prove."

"Well…I say you children have done an excellent job catching these…delinquents," said Ironwood, allowing a soft smile to stretch across his rigid face. "We will take them in for interrogation. If what Miss Rose has told me is true, they are involved in a lot more serious dealings that just disrupting the Vytal Tournament."

"No thanks to y – ow!" Sable yelped; Olive had elbowed her in the gut.

"What about Yang?" asked Ruby hopefully.

"With Mercury Black in custody, we should have enough evidence to file a report for Miss Xiao-Long's innocence," said Ironwood; Ruby cheered and threw her hands in the air. "Now I think it would be a good idea if we all made our way out; we're holding up the match."

Ruby, Team SHDO, and Team CFVY gave a small jump when a ripple of jeering pierced through the muffled silence. They had completely forgotten that they were still in the middle of the arena and the match between Pyrrha and Penny was still going on. Chuckling embarrassingly and scratching the back of her head red in the face, Ruby made a dash for the arena entrance; Team SHDO and Team CFVY stumbling behind the speedy redhead. Once they were in the hallway, Sable could hear the two bumbling announcers apologizing for the interruption and announcing that they would be proceeding with the match; the crowd cheered through the walls.

"I can't believe we did it," said Ruby, breathing a sigh of relief. "Penny's safe and Yang's not in trouble anymore."

"She wouldn't have been in trouble if Atlas hadn't been so half-assed on their job," said Sable aggressively.

"So what happens now?" asked Coco. "We stopped the bad guys and save the tournament. Do we go out to celebrate or something? Cause if so, I know this awesome bar downtown that has the best onion rings."

"We're not done yet," said Domino. "Emerald and Mercury might be locked up, but there's still their leader, Cinder, and that girl who uses a full-body disguise semblance. As long as they're still around, they could always try again."

"We'll worry about them tomorrow," said Sable, waving her. "At least the worst is behind us."

But even as they walked cheerfully out of the coliseum, making plans to celebrate saving the day and proving Yang's innocence, none of them realized that they were being watched the whole time. Or to be more specific, Sable was being watched, because just around the corner was the combined group of Rock and Ron, Black Matagi, and the newest member of their Black Star army, Insane Black Rock Shooter.

"She was pretty good out there," said Rock complimentary. "She beat the bad guys and stopped a disaster from happening."

"Her strategy was getting her ass kicked and hitting them when their back was turned," said Black Matagi dissatisfactory "Do we really need someone like her in our group."

"It doesn't matter how she did it as long as she won," said Ron. "According to the data, she's an excellent strategist, which is exactly what we need if we're going to fight off the Apostles. Besides, if we leave her here alone, this world will be erased."

"All right, fine," said Black Matagi, crossing her arms in annoyance. "But it doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Where does that sound familiar?" said Rock curiously.


End file.
